THE POEMS OF 
EDWARD ROWLAND SILL 



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THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two CowEe RtctivED 

iH' 1902 

Cof%'RIOMT fNTRV 

C AS* (V XXa No. 
COPY 8. 



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Copyright 1867 6y ^. iJ. ^i7? 
Copyright 1887, 1889, 1899, 1902 63/ Houghton, Mifflin and Company 

J.^Z rights reserved 






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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL xiii 

THE VENUS OF MILO . 1 

FIELD NOTES 9 

FIRST LOVE AND FANTASY 21 

MORNING 24 

LIFE 26 

FAITH 27 

SOLITUDE .29 

RETROSPECT 30 

CHRISTMAS IN CALIFORNIA 32 

AMONG THE REDWOODS 37 

OPPORTUNITY . 40 

HOME 41 

GOOD NEWS 42 

REVERIE 45 

SPRING 47 



FIVE LIVES 49 

TRANQUILLITY 52 

MY PEACE THOU ART ...... 54 

HER FACE 56 

DARE YOU ? 56 

THE INVISIBLE .58 

A DRIFTING CLOUD 61 

WORDSWORTH 62 

PEACE 64 

THE HOUSE AND THE HEART 65 

THE FOOL'S PRAYER 67 

BUT FOR HIM 70 

A REPLY 72 

THE DESERTER 74 

THE REFORMER 75 

DESIRE OF SLEEP 76 

HER EXPLANATION 78 

EVE'S DAUGHTER 79 

BLINDFOLD 80 



C vii ;] 

RECALL 82 

STRANGE 83 

WIEGENLIED .84 

AN ANCIENT ERROR 86 

TO A FACE AT A CONCERT 88 

TWO VIEWS OF IT 89 

THE LINKS OF CHANCE 90 

"WORDS, WORDS, WORDS" 91 

THE THRUSH 93 

CARPE DIEM 94 

SERVICE . 95 

THE BOOK OF HOURS 97 

THE WONDERFUL THOUGHT . . . . .98 

NATURE AND HER CHILD 102 

THE FOSTER-MOTHER . . . . . . .103 

TRUTH AT LAST 104 

QUEM METUI MORITURA?" 105 

A MORNING THOUGHT 106 

THE HERMITAGE 107 



(( 



SUNDOWN ^^^ 

THE ARCH ^^^ 

APRIL IN OAKLAND .....•• ^^^ 

STARLIGHT • • * ' '^^'^ 

A DEAD BIRD IN WINTER 160 

SPRING TWILIGHT . ^^^ 



• • 



164 

EVENING ^"* 

THE ORGAN ....;•••• ^^^ 

EASTERN WINTER ^^^ 

SLEEPING I'^O 

A PRAYER 172 

THE POLAR SEA . . . . . . . .173 

THE FUTURE 176 

A DAILY MIRACLE 178 

THE NORTH WIND 179 

CALIFORNIA WINTER 182 

INFLUENCES . . . . . . . . 185 

THE LOVER'S SONG ....... 186 

A TROPICAL MORNING AT SEA .... 187 



A FOOLISH WISH . 190 

EVERY-DAY LIFE ........ 192 

BEFORE SUNRISE IN WINTER 193 

THE CHOICE 194 

SIBYLLINE BARTERING 195 

MUSIC 197 

THREE SONGS 200 

DESPAIR AND HOPE 201 

WISDOM AND FAME 204 

SERENITY 206 

THE RUBY HEART 208 

TO CHILD ANNA 213 

THE WORLD'S SECRET 215 

THE FOUNTAIN 217 

DISCONTENT 219 

SEEMING AND BEING 220 

WEATHER-BOUND 223 

TO CHILD SARA ....... 225 

A FABLE 228 



C X 3 

THE CREATION 233 

THE FIRST CAUSE 234 

SEMELE 236 

A POET'S APOLOGY . . .... . . 239 

ONE TOUCH OF NATURE ..... 240 

THE CRICKETS IN THE FIELDS . . . .243 

HERINIIONE. 

I. The Lost Magic 244 

II. Influences 245 

III. The Dead Letter 246 

IV. The Song in the Night 247 

REPROOF IN LOVE 248 

TEMPTED .249 

ALONE 250 

TO A MAID DEMURE . . . . . . .252 

THE COUP DE GRACE 254 

THE WORLD RUNS ROUND 256 

SUNDAY 261 

ON SECOND THOUGHT 262 



HIS LOST DAY 263 

FERTILITY , . .266 

THE MYSTERY 266 

THE LOST BIRD . 267 

WARNING 269 

SUMMER AFTERNOON .270 

SUMMER NIGHT 272 

A CALIFORNIAN'S DREAMS 273 

FULFILLMENT 276 

THE SINGER . . 278 

THE THINGS THAT WILL NOT DIE . . . 280 

THE SECRET 283 

LOST LOVE 286 

APPRECIATED 288 

MOODS 289 

SPACE 290 

UNTIMELY THOUGHT 291 

THE LIFE NATURAL 292 

THE ORACLE 293 



FORCE 296 

NIGHT AND PEACE 298 

THE SINGER'S CONFESSION . . . . .299 

LIVING . ' . . 301 

EVEN THERE . . . 302 

SUMMER RAIN . 303 

A RESTING-PLACE 304 

A MEMORY 306 

THE OPEN WINDOW 308 

ON A PICTURE OF MT. SHASTA BY KEITH . 310 

THE TREE OF MY LIFE 313 

A CHILD AND A STAR 315 

AT DAWN 317 

AN ADAGE FROM THE ORIENT . . . . 318 

A PARADOX 319 

THE PHILOSOPHER 320 

A BIRD'S SONG 321 

THE DEAD PRESIDENT . . , . . . 322 

ROLAND 325 



EDWAED ROWLAND SILL 



EDWARD ROWLAND SILL 

X HE steady although somewhat tardy growth of 
Sill's reputation as a poet may best be illustrated by 
the history of his published writings. In 1868, seven 
years after leaving college, he issued, through the 
house of Leypoldt and Holt, a slender volume en- 
titled The Hermitage and Other Poems, He waited 
fifteen years before venturing upon his next book, 
which was a still more tiny, privately printed vol- 
ume. The Vefius of Milo and Other Poems, dated at 
Berkeley, California, 1883. A year or two before 
his death, which occurred in 1887, his present pub- 
lishers, who had noted with interest the poems which 
Sill had been contributing to the Atlantic and other 
periodicals, both under his own name and under pseu- 
donyms, invited him to make a collection of his poetry 
for publication. He was in no haste to do this, for 
he was in the midst of his most fertile period of cre- 
ative activity. While he was still uncertain as to his 
choice of material for the proposed volume, he passed 



[ xiv ] 

away. But in November, 1887, his publishers issued 
Poems by Edward Eowland Sill, a volume which 
contained five pieces from The Hermitage, a consid- 
erable portion of the contents of The Venus of Milo 
and Other Poems, and a selection from the uncol- 
lected poems of the last four or five years of his life. 
This book won many readers. Two years later a 
second collection was made, bearing the title The 
Hermitage and Later Poems, and enriched with a 
tributary lyric by Mr. Aldrich. So constant did the 
interest in Sill's poetry prove to be, that in 1899, 
twelve years after the poet's death, his publishers pre- 
sented a final volume of verse, Hermiione and Other 
Poems, gathered from his manuscripts and from the 
various periodicals in which his work had appeared. 
It is by these books, together with The Prose of Ed- 
ward Rowland Sill (1900), a volume made up chiefly 
of papers written for the Contributors' Club of the 
Atlantic, that his reputation as a man of letters has 
been estabHshed. 

The interest aroused by Sill's writings is attributa- 
ble in part, no doubt, to the marked individuality of 
the man. The story of his career is brief and modest. 
He was born in Windsor, Connecticut, April 29, 1841, 



of English and Welsh ancestry. His mother's father 
and grandfather were Congregational ministers. His 
father and his father's father were physicians and sur- 
geons. He was graduated at Yale in 1861, and for 
some years was engaged in business in California. 
In 1867 he returned East with the expectation of en- 
tering the ministry, and studied for a few months at 
the Divinity School of Harvard University. He gave 
up the purpose, however, married, and began to 
occupy himself with literary work. He translated 
Rau's Mozart^ and held for a while an editorial posi- 
tion on the New York Evening Mail. But his pe- 
culiar power in stimulating the minds of others drew 
him into the work of teaching, and he became prin- 
cipal of an academy in Ohio. His Cahfornia life, 
however, had given him a strong attachment' to the 
Pacific coast and a sense that his health would be 
better there, and accordingly, on receiving an invita- 
tion to a position in the Oakland High School, he re- 
moved to California in 1871. In 1874, he accepted 
the chair of English Literature in the University of 
California, and filled it with rare success for eight 
years. Compelled by failing health to resign in 
1882, he passed the latest years of his life in Ohio, 



C xvi ] 

and died in Cleveland, after a brief illness, on Feb- 
ruary 27, 1887. 

Yet back of this career, typical of that of many 
of his countrymen in its frequent changes of scene, 
its patient struggle against hard conditions, one per- 
ceives a strong personality. His life as a teacher was 
noteworthy for its capacity to inspire right principles 
of conduct ; he was a passionate idealist, who drew to 
himself the affection and pride of his pupils. One of 
his comrades in many a yearly outing in California 
sums up his disposition by calling him "a genial, 
gentle, sincere, unaffected, deep-sighted, quick-witted, 
dehghtful, gifted, lovable, manful, communicating 
man." In this long concourse of friendly adjectives 
much stress, doubtless, is to be thrown upon the last. 
Sill loved to communicate, and it was this quality of 
his temperament which helped to make him a poet. 

A real poet he unquestionably is : a " minor poet," 
if one chooses to insist upon distinctions of rank, yet 
with a message of his own, and a voice that is subtly 
differentiated from that of any other singer. He 
wrote in a private letter, the year before his death, " I 
know my Browning, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, 



n xvii ^ 

Emerson, far better than I do the ancients. And my 
Scott, Byron, Shelley and Wordsworth far better than 
the more ancient than they." This intimate know- 
ledge of the greater English poets of the nineteenth 
century left its impress upon Sill's own productions, 
and among the names cited, Tennyson, Arnold, and 
Emerson seem to have influenced him most. But as 
with Lowell, whose nature was in many respects akin 
to Sill's, the inspiration that comes from books left 
upon the poet's work few traces of mere bookishness. 
He saw the world with his own eyes, and his verse was 
all the richer for his familiarity with the thought and 
the music of the masters. Some of the most character- 
istic phases of his poetry, such as its variety of mood 
and form, sensitiveness to the influences of nature, and 
the flawless purity of its spirit, are traits which attest 
his brotherhood with the representative authors of his 
country and his time. But the individual impression 
he has made thus far — and it should be remembered 
that Sill's fame is still crescent — is by virtue of the 
fine strenuousness, the noble temper, of such poems 
as Opportunity and 77ie FooVs Prayer, Here are 
gallant courage, reverence, and enduring faith; an 



C xvui ] 

insio-ht that divines the prof oundest sources of human 
emotion and an art that expresses them with finished 

beauty. 

The present edition gives the reader, for the first 
time, an opportunity to survey Sill's poetical produc- 
tions in their entirety. It contains all the work in- 
cluded in the three volumes already published by. 
Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, and, in ad- 
dition to this, several poems hitherto uncollected, which 
are thought worthy of being placed among the rest, 
and which the increasing company of Sill's admirers 
are sure to welcome. 

March, 1902. 



POEMS 



THE VENUS OF MILO 

There fell a vision to Praxiteles : 
Watching thro' drowsy lids the loitering seas 
That lay caressing with white arms of foam 
The sleeping marge of his Ionian home. 
He saw great Aphrodite standing near, 
Knew her, at last, the Beautiful he had sought 
With lifelong passion, and in love and fear 
Into unsullied stone the vision wrought. 

Far other was the form that Cnidos gave 
To senile Rome, no longer free or brave, — 
The Medicean, naked like a slave. 
The Cnidians built her shrine 
Of creamy ivory fine ; 
Most costly was the floor 
Of scented cedar, and from door 
Was looped to carven door 
Rich stuff of Tyrian purple, in whose shade 
Her gHstening shoulders and round limbs outshone. 
Milk-white as lilies in a summer moon. 



C 2 2 

Here honey-hearted Greece to worship came, 
And on her altar leaped a turbid flame. 
The quickened blood ran dancing to its doom, 
And lip sought trembling lip in that rich gloom. 

But the island people of Cos, by the salt main 
From Persia's touch kept clean, 
Chose for their purer shrine amid the seas 
That grander vision of Praxiteles. 
Long ages after, sunken in the ground 
Of sea-girt Melos, wondering shepherds found 
The marred and dinted copy which men name 
Venus of Milo, saved to endless fame. 

Before the broken marble, on a day. 
There came a worshiper : a slanted ray 
Struck in across the dimness of her shrine 
And touched her face as to a smile divine ; 
For it was like the worship of a Greek 
At her old altar. Thus I heard him speak : — 

Men call thee Love : is there no hoHer name 
Than hers, the foam-born, laughter-loving dame ? 
Nay, for there is than love no hoUer name : 



C 3 ] 

All words that pass the lips of mortal men 
With inner and with outer meaning shine ; 
An outer gleam that meets the common ken, 
An inner light that but the few divine. 
Thou art the love celestial, seeking still 
The soul beneath the form ; the serene will ; 
The wisdom, of whose deeps the sages dream ; 
The unseen beauty that doth faintly gleam 
In stars, and flowers, and waters where they roll ; 
The unheard music whose faint echoes even 
Make whosoever hears a homesick soul 
Thereafter, till he follow it to heaven. 

Larger than mortal woman I see thee stand. 
With* beautiful head bent forward steadily. 
As if those earnest eyes could see 
Some glorious thing far off, to which thy hand 
Invisibly stretched onward seems to be. 
From thy white forehead's breadth of calm, the hair 
Sweeps lightly, as a cloud in windless air. 
Placid thy brows, as that still line at dawn 
Where the dim hills along the sky are drawn. 
When the last stars are drowned in deeps afar. 
Thy quiet mouth — I know not if it smile. 



r 4 n 

Or if in some wise pity thou wilt weep, — 
Little as one may tell, some summer morn, 
Whether the dreamy brightness is most glad, 
Or wonderfully sad, — 
So bright, so still thy lips serenely sleep ; 
So fixedly thine earnest eyes the while. 
As clear and steady as the morning star. 
Their gaze upon that coming glory keep. 

Thy garment's fallen folds 
Leave beautiful the fair, round breast 
In sacred loveliness ; the bosom deep 
Where happy babe might sleep ; 
The ample waist no narrowing girdle holds, 
Where daughters slim might come to cling and rest. 
Like tendriled vines against the plane-tree pressed. 
Around thy firm, large hmbs and steady feet 
The robes slope downward, as the folded hills 
Slope round the mountain's knees, when shadow fills 
The hollow canons, and the wind is sweet 
From russet oat-fields and the ripening wheat. 

From our low world no gods have taken wing ; 
Even now upon our hills the twain are wandering ; 



n 5 3 

The Medicean's sly and servile grace, 

And the immortal beauty of thy face. 

One is the spirit of all short-Hved love 

And outward, earthly loveliness : 

The tremulous rosy morn is her mouth's smile, 

The sky her laughing azure eyes above ; 

And, waiting for caress, 

Lie bare the soft hill-slopes, the while 

Her thrilHng voice is heard 

In song of wind and wave, and every flitting bird. 

Not plainly, never quite herself she shows ; 

Just a swift glance of her illumined smile 

Along the landscape goes ; 

Just a soft hint of singing, to beguile 

A man from all his toil ; 

Some vanished gleam of beckoning arm, to spoil 

A morning's task with longing wild and vain. 

Then if across the parching plain 

He seek her, she with passion burns 

His heart to fever, and he hears 

The west wind's mocking laughter when he turns, 

Shivering in mist of ocean's sullen tears. 

It is the Medicean : well I know 

The arts her ancient subtlety will show ; 



i: 6 :i 

The stubble-fields she turns to ruddy gold ; 

The empty distance she will fold 

In purple gauze : the warm glow she has kissed 

Along the chilling mist : 

Cheating and cheated love that grows to hate 

And ever deeper loathing, soon or late. 

Thou, too, fairer spirit, walkest here 
Upon the lifted hills : 

Wherever that still thought within the breast 
The inner beauty of the world hath moved ; 
In starlight that the dome of evening fills ; 
On endless waters rounding to the west : 
For them who thro' that beauty's veil have loved 
The soul of all things beautiful the best. 
For lying broad awake, long ere the dawn. 
Staring against the dark, the blank of space 
Opens immeasurably, and thy face 
Wavers and glimmers there and is withdrawn. 
And many days, when all one's work is vain. 
And life goes stretching on, a waste gray plain. 
With even the short mirage of morning gone. 
No cool breath anywhere, no shadow nigh 
Where a weary man might lay him down and die. 



I 1 ] 

Lo ! thou art there before me suddenly, 

With shade as if a summer cloud did pass. 

And spray of fountains whispering to the grass. 

Oh, save me from the haste and noise and heat 

That spoil life's music sweet : 

And from that lesser Aphrodite there — 

Even now she stands 

Close as I turn, and, my soul, how fair ! 

Nay, I will heed not thy white beckoning hands, 

Nor thy soft lips like the curled inner leaf 

In a rosebud's breast, kissed languid by the sun. 

Nor eyes like liquid gleams where waters run. 

Yea, thou art beautiful as morn ; 

And even as I draw nigh 

To scoff, I own the loveliness I scorn. 

Farewell, for thou hast lost me : keep thy train 

Of worshipers ; me thou dost lure in vain : 

The inner passion, pure as very fire, 

Burns to light ash the earthlier desire. 

greater Aphrodite, unto thee 
Let me not say farewell. What would Earth be 
Without thy presence? Surely unto me 
A Hfelong weariness, a dull, bad dream. 



c 8 :! 

Abide with me, and let thy cahn brows beam 

Fresh hope upon me every amber dawn, 

New peace when evening's violet veil is drawn. 

Then, tho' I see along the glooming plain 

The Medicean's waving hand again. 

And white feet glimmering in the harvest-field, 

I shall not turn, nor yield ; 

But as heaven deepens, and the Cross and Lyre 

Lift up their stars beneath the Northern Crown, 

Unto the yearning of the world's desire 

I shall be 'ware of answer coming down ; 

And something, when my heart the darkness stills. 

Shall tell me, without sound or any sight. 

That other footsteps are upon the hills ; 

Till the dim earth is luminous with the light 

Of the white dawn, from some far-hidden shore. 

That shines upon thy forehead evermore. 



n 9 3 



FIELD NOTES 



By the wild fence-row, all grown up 

With tall oats, and the buttercup, 

And the seeded grass, and blue flax-flower, 

I fling myself in a nest of green, 

Walled about and all unseen. 

And lose myself in the quiet hour. 

Now and then from the orchard-tree 

To the sweet clover at my knee 

Hums the crescendo of a bee. 

Making the silence seem more still ; 

Overhead on a maple prong 

The least of birds, a jeweled sprite, 

With burnished throat and needle bill. 

Wags his head in the golden light. 

Till it flashes, and dulls, and flashes bright. 

Cheeping his microscopic song. 

1 Written for the graduating class of 1882, at Smith College, 
Northampton, Mass. It is a pleasant custom at that college for each 
class to send abroad and invite some one to celebrate its entrance 
into the greater world. 



L lo ] 



II 

Far up the hill-farm, where the breeze 

Dips its wing in the billowy grain, 

Waves go chasing from the plain 

On softly undulating seas ; 

Now near my nest they swerve and turn, 

And now go wandering without aim ; 

Or yonder, where the poppies burn, 

Race up the slope in harmless flame. 

Sometimes the bold wind sways my walls, 

My four green walls of the grass and oats, 

But never a slender column falls, 

And the blue sky-roof above them floats. 

Cool in the glowing sun I feel 

On wrist and cheek the sea-breeze steal 

From the wholesome ocean brine. 

The air is full of the whispering pine. 

Surf-sound of an aerial sea ; 

And the light clashing, near and far, 

As of mimic shield and scimitar. 

Of the slim Australian tree. 



n 11 :] 



III 

So all that azure day 
In the lap of the green world I lay ; 
And drinking of the sunshine's flood, 
Like Sigurd when the dragon's blood 
Made the bird-songs understood, 
Inward or outward I could hear 
A murmuring of music near ; 
And this is what it seemed to say : — 



IV 



Old earth, how beautiful thou art ! 
Though restless fancy wander wide 
And sigh in dreams for spheres more blest, 
Save for some trouble, half -confessed. 
Some least misgiving, all my heart 
With such a world were satisfied. 
Had every day such skies of blue. 
Were men all wise, and women true. 
Might youth as calm as manhood be. 
And might calm manhood keep its lore 



n ^2 n 

And still be young — and one thing more, 
Old earth were fair enough for me. 

Ah, sturdy world, old patient world ! 
Thou hast seen many times and men ; 
Heard jibes and curses at thee hurled 
From cynic Up and peevish pen. 
But give the mother once her due : 
Were women wise, and men all true — 
And one thing more that may not be. 
Old earth were fair enough for me. 



If only we were worthier found 

Of the stout ball that bears us round ! 

New wants, new ways, pert plans of change. 

New answers to old questions strange ; 

But to the older questions still 

No new repHes have come, or will. 

New speed to buzz abroad and see 

Cities where one needs not to be ; 

But no new way to dwell at home. 

Or there to make great friendships come ; 



C 13 ] 

No novel way to seek or find 
True hearts and the heroic mind. 
Of atom force and chemic stew 
Nor Socrates nor Caesar knew. 
But the old ages knew a plan — 
The lost art — how to mould a man. 



VI 



World, wise old world, 
What may man do for thee ? 
Thou that art greater than all of us, 
What wilt thou do to me ? 
This glossy curve of the tall grass-spear — 
Can I make its lustrous green more clear ? 
This tapering shaft of oat, that knows 
To grow erect as the great pine grows. 
And to sway in the wind as well as he — 
Can I teach it to nod more graciously ? 
The lark on the mossy rail so nigh. 
Wary, but pleased if I keep my place — 
Who could give a single grace 
To his flute-note sweet and high, 
Or help him find his nest hard by ? 



c: 14 n 

Can I add to the poppy's gold one bit ? 
Can I deepen the sky, or soften it ? 



VII 

^ons ago a rock crashed down 

From a mountain's crown, 

Where a tempest's tread 

Crumbled it from its hold. 

Ages dawn and in turn grow old : 

The rock lies still and dead. 

Flames come and floods come, 

Sea rolls this mountain crumb 

To a pebble, in its play ; 

Till at the last man came to be. 

And a thousand generations passed away. 

Then from the bed of a brook one day 

A boy with the heart of a king 

Fitted the stone to his shepherd sling. 

And a giant fell, and a royal race was free. 

Not out of any cloud or sky 

Will thy good come to prayer or cry. 

Let the great forces, wise of old. 

Have their whole way with thee, 



c 15 n 

Crumble thy heart from its hold, 

Drown thy life in the sea. 

And seons hence, some day, 

The love thou gavest a child. 

The dream in a midnight wild. 

The word thou wouldst not say — 

Or in a whisper no one dared to hear. 

Shall gladden the earth and bring the golden year. 

VIII 

Just now a spark of fire 

Flashed from a builder's saw 

On the ribs of a roof a mile away. 

His has been the better day, 

Gone not in dreams, nor even the subtle desire 

Not to desire ; 

But work is the sober law 

He knows well to obey. 

It is a poem he fits and fashions well ; 

And the five chambers are five acts of it : 

Hope in one shall dwell. 

In another fear will sit ; 

In the chamber on the east 



Shall be the bridal feast ; 
In the western one 
The dead shall lie alone. 
So the cycles of life shall fill 
The clean, pine-scented rooms where now he 
works his will. 



IX 

Might one be healed from fevering thought, 

And only look, each night, 

On some plain work well wrought, 

Or if a man as right and true might be 

As a flower or tree ! 

I would give up all the mind 

In the prim city's hoard can find — 

House with its scrap-art bedight. 

Straitened manners of the street, 

Smooth-voiced society — 

If so the swiftness of the wind 

Might pass into my feet ; 

If so the sweetness of the wheat 

Into my soul might pass. 

And the clear courage of the grass ; 



c 17 :i 

If the lark caroled in my song ; 
If one tithe of the faithfulness 
Of the bird-mother with her brood 
Into my selfish heart might press. 
And make me also instinct-good. 



Life is a game the soul can play 

With fewer pieces than men say. 

Only to grow as the grass grows, 

Prating not of joys or woes ; 

To burn as the steady hearth-fire burns ; 

To shine as the star can shine, 

Or only as the mote of dust that turns 

Darkling and twinkling in the beam of light divine ; 

And for my wisdom — glad to know 

Where the sweetest beech-nuts grow, 

And to track out the spicy root. 

Or peel the musky core of the wild-berry shoot ; 

And how the russet ground-bird bold 

With both slim feet at once will lightly rake the 

mould ; 
And why moon- shadows from the swaying limb 



•c: 18 1 

Here are sharp and there are dim ; 

And how the ant his zigzag way can hold 

Through the grass that is a grove to him. 

'T were good to live one's life alone. 

So to share life with many a one : 

To keep a thought seven years, and then 

Welcome it coming to you 

On the way from another's brain and pen, 

So to judge if it be true. 

Then would the world be fair, 

Beautiful as is the past, 

Whose beauty we can see at last, 

Since self no more is there. 



XI 



I will be glad to be and do. 

And glad of all good men that live, 

For they are woof of nature too ; 

Glad of the poets every one. 

Pure Longfellow, great Emerson, 

And all that Shakespeare's world can give. 

When the road is dust, and the grass dries. 



Then will I gaze on the deep skies ; 
And if Dame Nature frown in cloud, 
Well, mother — then my heart shall say 
You cannot so drive me away ; 
I will still exult aloud. 
Companioned of the good hard ground, 
Whereon stout hearts of every clime, 
In the battles of all time. 
Foothold and couch have found. 



XII 



Joy to the laughing troop 

That from the threshold starts, 

Led on by courage and immortal hope, 

And with the morning in their hearts. 

They to the disappointed earth shall give 

The lives we meant to live. 

Beautiful, free, and strong ; 

The light we almost had 

Shall make them glad ; 

The words we waited long 

Shall run in music from their voice and song. 

Unto our world hope's daily oracles 



From their lips shall be brought ; 

And in our lives love's hourly miracles 

By them be wrought. 

Their merry task shall be 

To make the house all fine and sweet 

Its new inhabitants to greet, 

The wondrous dawning century. 

XIII 

And now the close of this fair day was come ; 

The bay grew duskier on its purple floor, 

And the long curve of foam 

Drew its white net along a dimmer shore. 

Through the fading saffron Hght, 

Through the deepening shade of even, 

The round earth rolled into the summer night, 

And watched the kindling of the stars in heaven. 



C 21 3 



FIRST LOVE AND FANTASY 

Hid in the silence of a forest deep 
Dwelt a fair soul, in flesh that was as fair. 
Over her nimble hands her floating hair 
Made waving shadows, while her eyes did keep 
The winding track of weavery intricate. 
Early at morn, and at the evening late, 
A robe of shimmering silk she wove with care. 
Hour after hour, though might she smile or weep, 
Still ran the golden or the glooming thread. 
Waking, she wove that which she dreamed asleep, 
TiU many a moon had bloomed and blanched above 
her head. 

Now when the time was full, the robe was done. 
Light she would hold it in her loving hand. 
And with wide eyes of wonder she would stand 
For half the day, and turn it to the sun. 
To see its gold lights shift and melt away 
And grow again, and flash in myriad play. 
Or, while it glimmered on each glossy strand, 



For half the night she held it to the moon ; 

Or, sitting with it sleeked across her knee, 

She would bend down above it, and would croon 

The strangest bits of broken songs that e'er could be. 

Then came the dawn when (so her doom had said) 
Out through the shadowy forest she must go, 
And follow wheresoever chance might show, 
Or whither any sound her footsteps led ; 
Taking for wayward guides whatever stirred — 
The rustling squirrel, or the startled bird. 
Their pathless ways pursuing, fast or slow — 
Until the forest's border she should tread. 
There, whosoever met her, she must fling 
That woven wonder blindly o'er his head. 
And see in him f orevermore her lord and king. 

Dim was the morn, and dew-wet was the way : 

Aloft the ancient cedars lifted high 

Their jagged crosses on the brightening sky : 

Below, the gossamers were glimmering gray 

Along her path, and many a silver thread 

Caught glancing lights, in floating curves o'erhead ; 

And little dew-showers pattered far and nigh, 



n 23 ] 

Where wakened thrushes stirred the sprinkled spray. 
For hours she wandered where her footsteps led, 
Till a long glance of open sunlight lay 
As red as gold upon her lifted, eager head. 

Ah, woe for her, that mortal doom must be ! 
Just then the prince came spurring, fair and young. 
With heart as merry as the song he sung ; 
But when she started forward, at her knee 
A cringing beggar from the weeds close by 
Holds up his cap for alms, with whining cry. 
Swift over him the lifted robe was flung : 
Henceforth, his slave, forever she must see 
All princely beauty in that brutal face — 
Heaven send that by some deeper witchery 
His meagre soul through her may gain its touch of 
grace 1 



c: 24 3 



MORNING 

I ENTERED once, at break of day, 

A chapel, lichen-stained and gray, 

Where a congregation dozed and heard 

An old monk read from a written Word. 

No Hght through the window-panes could pass, 

For shutters were closed on the rich stained-glass ; 

And in a gloom like the nether night 

The monk read on by a taper's light. 

Ghostly with shadows, that shrank and grew 

As the dim light flared, were aisle and pew ; 

And the congregation that dozed around 

Listened without a stir or sound — 

Save one, who rose with wistful face. 

And shifted a shutter from its place. 

Then light flashed in like a flashing gem — 

For dawn had come unknown to them — 

And a slender beam, like a lance of gold, 

Shot to the crimson curtain-fold, 

Over the bended head of him 

Who pored and pored by the taper dim ; 



C 25 3 

And it kindled over his wrinkled brow 
Such words — " The law which was till now ; " 
And I wondered that, under that morning ray, 
When night and shadow were scattered away, 
The monk should bow his locks of white 
By a taper's feebly flickering light — 
Should pore, and pore, and never seem 
To notice the golden morning-beam. 



c 26 :i 



LIFE 

Forenoon and afternoon and night, — Forenoon, 
And afternoon, and night, — Forenoon, and — what ! 
The empty song repeats itself. No more ? 
Yea, that is Life : make this forenoon sublime. 
This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer. 
And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won. 



i 27 ;] 



FAITH 

The tree-top, high above the barren field, 
Rising beyond the night's gray folds of mist, 

Rests stirless where the upper air is sealed 
To perfect silence, by the faint moon kiss'd. 

But the low branches, drooping to the ground, 
Sway to and fro, as sways funereal plume, 

While from their restless depths low whispers sound- 
" We fear, we fear the darkness and the gloom ; 
Dim forms beneath us pass and reappear. 
And mournful tongues are menacing us here." 

Then from the topmost bough falls calm reply — 
" Hush, hush ! I see the coming of the morn ; 

Swiftly the silent Night is passing by. 
And in her bosom rosy Dawn is borne. 
'T is but your own dim shadows that ye see, 
'T is but your own low moans that trouble ye." 

So Life stands, with a twilight world around ; 
Faith turned serenely to the steadfast sky, 



C 28 n 

Still answering the heart that sweeps the ground, 
Sobbing in fear, and tossing restlessly — 

" Hush, hush ! The Dawn breaks o'er the East- 
em sea, 

'T is but thine own dim shadow troubling thee." 



C 29 3 



SOLITUDE 

All alone — alone, 

Calm, as on a kingly throne, 

Take thy place in the crowded land, 

Self-centred in free self-command. 

Let thy manhood leave behind 

The narrow ways of the lesser mind : 

What to thee are its little cares. 

The feeble love or the spite it bears ? 

Let the noisy crowd go by : 

In thy lonely watch on high. 

Far from the chattering tongues of men, 

Sitting above their call or ken. 

Free from links of manner and form 

Thou shalt learn of the winged storm — 

God shall speak to thee out of the sky. 



i: 30 3 



RETROSPECT 

Not all which we have been 

Do we remain, 
Nor on the dial-hearts of men 

Do the years mark themselves in vain ; 
But every cloud that in our sky hath passed, 
Some gloom or glory hath upon us cast ; 
And there have fallen from us, as we traveled, 

Many a burden of an ancient pain — 
Many a tangled chord hath been unraveled, 

Never to bind our foolish heart again. 
Old loves have left us lingeringly and slow, 
As melts away the distant strain of low 
Sweet music — waking us from troubled dreams, 
Lulling to holier ones — that dies afar 
On the deep night, as if by silver beams 
Claspt to the trembling breast of some charmed star. 
And we have stood and watched, all wistfully, 
While fluttering hopes have died out of our lives, 
As one who follows with a straining eye 
A bird that far, far off fades in the sky, 



C 31 ;] 

A little rocking speck — now lost; and still he strives 

A moment to recover it — in vain ; 

Then slowly turns back to his work again. 

But loves and hopes have left us in their place, 

Thank God ! a gentle grace, 

A patience, a belief in His good time, 

Worth more than all earth's joys to which we climb. 



i S2 2 



CHRISTMAS IN CALIFORNIA 

Can this be Claristmas — sweet as May, 
With drowsy sun, and dreamy air, 

And new grass pointing out the way 
For flowers to follow, everywhere ? 

Has Time grown sleepy at his post, 
And let the exiled Summer back. 

Or is it her regretful ghost. 
Or witchcraft of the almanac ? 

While wandering breaths of mignonette 

In at the open window come, 
I send my thoughts afar, and let 

Them paint your Christmas Day at home. 

Glitter of ice, and glint of frost. 
And sparkles in the crusted snow ; 

And hark ! the dancing sleigh-bells, tost 
The faster as they fainter grow. 



i: 33 3 

The creaking footsteps hurry past ; 

The quick breath dims the frosty air ; 
And down the crisp road slipping fast 

Their laughing loads the cutters bear. 

Penciled against the cold white sky. 
Above the curling eaves of snow. 

The thin blue smoke lifts Hngeringly, 
As loath to leave the mirth below. 

For at the door a merry din 

Is heard, with stamp of feathery feet, 
And chattering girls come storming in, 

To toast them at the roaring grate. 

And then from muff and pocket peer. 
And many a warm and scented nook, 

Mysterious little bundles queer, 

That, rustHng, tempt the curious look. 

Now broad upon the southern walls 
The mellowed sun's great smile appears. 

And tips the rough-ringed icicles 

With sparks, that grow to glittering tears. 



[ 34 ] 

Then, as the darkening day goes by. 
The wind gets gustier without, 

And leaden streaks are on the sky, 
And whirls of snow are all about. 

Soon firelight shadows, merry crew. 
Along the darkhng walls will leap 

And clap their hands, as if they knew 
A thousand things too good to keep. 

Sweet eyes with home's contentment filled, 
As in the smouldering coals they peer, 

Haply some wondering pictures build 
Of how I keep my Christmas here. 

Before me, on the wide, warm bay, 

A million azure ripples run ; 
Kound me the sprouting palm-shoots lay 

Their shining lances to the sun. 

With glossy leaves that poise or swing. 
The callas their white cups unfold. 

And faintest chimes of odor ring 

From silver bells with tongues of gold. 



i: 35 ; 

A languor of deliciousness 

Fills all the sea-enchanted clime ; 

And in the blue heavens meet, and kiss, 
The loitering clouds of summer-time. 

This fragrance of the mountain balm 
From spicy Lebanon might be ; 

Beneath such sunshine's amber calm 
Slumbered the waves of GaHlee. 

wondrous gift, in goodness given. 
Each hour anew our eyes to greet. 

An earth so fair — so close to Heaven, 
'T was trodden by the Master's feet. 

And we — what bring we in return ? 

Only these broken lives, and lift 
Them up to meet His pitying scorn. 

As some poor child its foolish gift : 

As some poor child on Christmas Day 
Its broken toy in love might bring ; 

You could not break its heart and say 
You cared not for the worthless thing ? 



i: 36 :i 

Ah, word of trust, His child ! That child 
Who brought to earth the life divine, 

Tells me the Father's pity mild 

Scorns not even such a gift as mine. 

I am His creature, and His air 

I breathe, where'er my feet may stand ; 
The angels' song rings everywhere. 

And all the earth is Holy Land. 



c: 37 :i 



AMONG THE REDWOODS 

Farewell to such a world ! Too long I press 
The crowded pavement with unwiUing feet. 

Pity makes pride, and hate breeds hatef ulness, 
And both are poisons. In the forest, sweet 

The shade, the peace ! Immensity, that seems 

To drown the human life of doubts and dreams. 

Far off the massive portals of the wood, 

Buttressed with shadow, misty-blue, serene, 

Waited my coming. Speedily I stood 

Where the dun wall rose roofed in plumy green. 

Dare one go in ? — Glance backward ! Dusk as night 

Each column, fringed with sprays of amber light. 

Let me, along this fallen bole, at rest, 

Turn to the cool, dim roof my glowing face. 

Delicious dark on weary eyelids prest ! 
Enormous solitude of silent space. 

But for a low and thunderous ocean sound, 

Too far to hear, felt thrilling through the ground. 



C 38 ] 

No stir nor call the sacred hush profanes ; 

Save when from some bare treetop, far on high, 
Fierce disputations of the clamorous cranes 

Fall muffled, as from out the upper sky. 
So still, one dreads to wake the dreaming air, 
Breaks a twig softly, moves the foot with care. 

The hollow dome is green with empty shade. 

Struck through with slanted shafts of afternoon ; 

Aloft, a little rift of blue is made, 

Where sHps a ghost that last night was the moon ; 

Beside its pearl a sea-cloud stays its wing. 

Beneath a tilted hawk is balancing. 

The heart feels not in every time and mood 
What is around it. Dull as any stone 

I lay ; then, like a darkening dream, the wood 
Grew Karnak's temple, where I breathed alone 

In the awed air strange incense, and uprose 

Dim, monstrous columns in their dread repose. 

The mind not always sees ; but if there shine 
A bit of fern-lace bending over moss, 

A silky glint that rides a spider-Hne, 

On a trefoil two shadow-spears that cross, 



i: 39 :i 

Three grasses that toss up their nodding heads, 
With spring and curve like clustered fountain- 
threads, — 

Suddenly, through side windows of the eye, 
Deep solitudes, where never souls have met ; 

Vast spaces, forest corridors that lie 
In a mysterious world, unpeopled yet. 

Because the outward eye elsewhere was caught. 

The awfulness and wonder come unsought. 

If death be but resolving back again 
Into the world's deep soul, this is a kind 

Of quiet, happy death, untouched by pain 
Or sharp reluctance. For I feel my mind 

Is interfused with all I hear and see ; 

As much a part of All as cloud or tree. 

Listen ! A deep and solemn wind on high ; 

The shafts of shining dust shift to and fro ; 
The columned trees sway imperceptibly. 

And creak as mighty masts when trade-winds blow. 
The cloudy sails are set ; the earth-ship swings 
Along the sea of space to grander things. 



[ 40 ] 



OPPORTUNITY 

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream : — 
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain ; 
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged 
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords 
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner 
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. 
A craven hung along the battle's edge, 
And thought, " Had I a sword of keener steel — 
That blue blade that the king's son bears, — but this 
Blunt thing — ! " he snapt and flung it from his 

hand. 
And lowering crept away and left the field. 
Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, 
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, 
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand. 
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout 
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, 
And saved a great cause that heroic day. 



C 41 ] 



HOME 

There lies a little city in the hills ; 

White are its roofsj dim is each dwelling's door, 

And peace with perfect rest its bosom fills. 

There the pure mist, the pity of the sea, 
Comes as a white, soft hand, and reaches o'er 
And touches its still face most tenderly. 

Unstirred and calm, amid our shifting years, 
Lo ! where it lies, far from the clash and roar, 
With quiet distance blurred, as if thro* tears. 

heart, that prayest so for God to send 

Some loving messenger to go before 

And lead the way to where thy longings end. 

Be sure, be very sure, that soon will come 
His kindest angel, and through that still door 
Into the Infinite love will lead thee home. 



C 42 ;] 



GOOD NEWS 

'T IS just the day to hear good news : 
The pulses of the world are still ; 

The eager spring's unfolding hues 
Are drowned in floods of sun, that fill 

The golden air, and softly bear 

Deep sleep and silence ever3rwhere. 
No ripple runs along that sea 

Of warm, new grass, but all things wear 
A hush of calm expectancy : 
What is coming to Heart and me ? 

The idle clouds, that work their wills 
In moods of shadow, on the hills ; 
The dusky hollows in the trees. 
Veiled with their sunlit 'broideries ; 
The gate that has not swung, all day ; 

The dappled water's drowsy gleam ; 
The tap of hammers far away, 

And distant voices, like a dream, — 
All seem but visions, and a tone 

Haunts them of tidings they refuse : 



[ 43 :i 

So, all the quiet afternoon, 
Heart and I we sit alone, 

Waiting for some good news. 

Other days had life to spare, 

Tasks to do, and men to meet. 
Trifling wishes, bits of care, 

A hundred ways for ready feet ; 

But this bright day is all so sweet, 
So sweet, 't is sad in its content ; 
As if kind Nature, as she went 
Her happy way, had paused a space. 
Remembered us, and turned her face 

As toward some protest of distress ; 
Waiting till we should find our place 

In the wide world's happiness. 
Nothing stirs but some vague scent, 

A breath of hidden violet — 
The lonely last of odors gone — 

Still lingering from the morning dews, 
As if it were the earth's regret 
For other such bright days that went, 
While Heart and I we sat alone. 

Waiting for our good news. 



c; 44 ;] 

What would you have for your good news, 
Foolish Heart, foolish Heart ? 

Some new freedom to abuse, 
Some old trouble to depart ? 

Sudden flash of snowy wing 

Out of yonder blue, to bring 

Messages so long denied ? 

The old greeting at your side, 

The old hunger satisfied ? 

Nay, the distant will not come ; 
To deaf ears all songs are dumb : 

Silly Heart, silly Heart ! 
From within joy must begin — 

What could help the thing thou art ? 
Nothing draweth from afar, 
The gods can give but what we are. 
Heaven makes the mould, but soon and late 
Man pours the metal — that is Fate. 
We must speak the word we wait, 

And give the gift we die to own. 

Wake, Heart ! From us alone 
Can come our best good news. 



C 45 ;] 



REVERIE 

Whether 't was in that dome of evening sky, 
So hollow^ where the few great stars were bright, 

Or something in the cricket's lonely cry, 

Or, farther off, where swelled upon the night 
The surf-beat of the symphony's delight, 

Then died in crumbling cadences away — 

A dream of Schubert's soul, too sweet to stay : 

Whether from these, or secret spell within, — 
It seemed an empty waste of endless sea. 

Where the waves mourned for what had never been. 
Where the wind sought for what could never be : 
Then all was still, in vast expectancy 

Of powers that waited but some mystic sign 

To touch the dead world to a life divine. 

Me, too, it filled — that breathless, blind desire ; 

And every motion of the oars of thought 
Thrilled all the deep in flashes — sparks of fire 

In meshes of the darkling ripples caught. 



n 46 3 

Swiftly rekindled, and then quenched to naught ; 
And the dark held me ; wish and will were none : 
A soul unformed and void, silent, alone, 
And brooded over by the Infinite One. 



[47 :\ 



SPRING 

When is it Spring ? When spirits rise, 
Pure crocus-buds, where the snow dies ; 
When children play outdoors till dark ; 
When the sap trickles up the bark ; 
When bits of blue sky flit and sing, 
Playing at birds — then is it Spring ? 

When is it Spring ? When the bee hums ; 
When through the opened window comes 
The breeze, and summer-license claims 
To swing and toss the picture frames ; 
When the walk dries ; the robins call ; 
The brown hens doze by the sunny wall. 
One foot drawn up to warm, or sing 
With half -filmed eyes — then is it Spring ? 

Nay, each might prove a treacherous sign : 
But when old waters seem new wine ; 
When all our mates are half divine ; 
When love comes easier than hate ; 



i: 48 :] 

When we have no more shrugs at Fate, 

But think sometimes of God, and late 

Our swiftest serving seems to be ; 

When bright ways numberless we see, 

And thoughts spring up, and hopes run free, 

And wild new dreams are all on wing. 

Till we must either fly or sing 

With riotous life — be sure 't is Spring. 



n 49 3 



FIVE LIVES 

Five mites of monads dwelt in a round drop 
That twinkled on a leaf by a pool in the sun. 
To the naked eye they lived invisible ; 
Specks, for a world of whom the empty shell 
Of a mustard-seed had been a hollow sky. 

One was a meditative monad, called a sage ; 
And, shrinking all his mind within, he thought : 
" Tradition, handed down for hours and hours. 
Tells that our globe, this quivering crystal world. 
Is slowly dying. What if, seconds hence. 
When I am very old, yon shimmering dome 
Come drawing down and down, till all things end ? " 
Then with a weazen smirk he proudly felt 
No other mote of God had ever gained 
Such giant grasp of universal truth. 

One was a transcendental monad ; thin 
And long and slim in the mind ; and thus he mused : 
'' Oh, vast, unfathomable monad-souls ! 



[ 50 ] 

Made in the image " — a hoarse frog croaks from the 

pool — 
^' Hark ! 't was some god, voicing his glorious thought 
In thunder music ! Yea, we hear their voice, 
And we may guess their minds from ours, their work. 
Some taste they have like ours, some tendency 
To wriggle about, and munch a trace of scum." 
He floated up on a pin-point bubble of gas 
That burst, pricked by the air, and he was gone. 

One was a barren-minded monad, called 
A positivist ; and he knew positively : 
" There is no world beyond this certain drop. 
Prove me another ! Let the dreamers dream 
Of their faint dreams, and noises from without, 
And higher and lower ; life is life enough." 
Then swaggering half a hair's breadth, hungrily 
He seized upon an atom of bug, and fed. 

One was a tattered monad, called a poet ; 
And with shrill voice ecstatic thus he sang : 
" Oh, the little female monad's lips 1 
Oh, the Httle female monad's eyes ! 
Ah, the Httle, little, female, female monad ! " 



c 51 :i 

The last was a strong-minded monadess, 
Who dashed amid the infusoria, 
Danced high and low, and wildly spun and dove 
Till the dizzy others held their breath to see. 

But while they led their wondrous little lives 
-Ionian moments had gone wheeHng by. 
The burning drop had shrunk with fearful speed ; 
A glistening film — 't was gone ; the leaf was dry. 
The little ghost of an inaudible squeak 
Was lost to the frog that goggled from his stone ; 
Who, at the huge, slow tread of a thoughtful ox 
Coming to drink, stirred sideways fatly, plunged. 
Launched backward twice, and all the pool was still. 



c 52 :\ 



TRANQUILLITY 

Weary, and marred with care and pain 
And bruising days, the human brain 
Draws wounded inward, — it might be 
Some deHcate creature of the sea, 
That, shuddering, shrinks its lucent dome, 
And coils its azure tendrils home. 
And folds its filmy curt^ns tight 
At jarring contact, e'er so light ; 
But let it float away all free. 
And feel the buoyant, supple sea 
Among its tinted streamers swell. 
Again it spreads its gauzy wings. 
And, waving its wan fringes, swings 
With rhythmic pulse its crystal bell. 

So let the mind, with care overwrought. 
Float down the tranquil tides of thought : 
Calm visions of unending years 
Beyond this little moment's fears ; 
Of boundless regions far from where 



i: 53 3 

The girdle of the azure air 

Binds to the earth the prisoned mind. 

Set free the fancy, till it find 

Beyond our world a vaster place 

To thrill and vibrate out through space, — 

As some auroral banner streams 

Up through the night in pulsing gleams, 

And floats and flashes o'er our dreams ; 

There let the whirKng planet fall 

Down — down, till but a glimmering ball, 

A misty star : and dwindled so, 

There is no room for care, or woe, 

Or wish, apart from that one Will 

That doth the worlds with music fill. 



C 54 ] 



MT PEACE THOU ART 

My peace thou art, thou art my rest ; 
From thee my pain, in thee so blest : 
Enter mine eyes, this heart draw near, 
Oh come, oh dwell forever here. 

Enter, and close the door, and come, 
And be this breast thine endless home ; 
Shut out all lesser care and woe, 
I would thy hurt and healing know. 

Clear light that on my soul hath shone. 
Still let it shine from thee alone, 
From thee alone. 



i: 55 -2 



HER FACE 

I STOOD in sombre dreaming 
Before her image dear, 

And saw, in secret wonder, 
Living my darling appear. 

About her mouth a smile came, 
So wonderful and wise. 

And tears of some still sorrow 
Seemed shining in her eyes. 

My tears, they too were flowing, 
Her face I could not see. 

And oh ! I cannot believe it, 
That my love is lost to me. 



i: 56 3 



DARE YOU? 

Doubting Thomas and loving John, 
Behind the others walking on : — 

" Tell me now, John, dare you be 
One of the minority ? 
To be lonely in your thought, 
Never visited nor sought, 
Shunned with secret shrug, to go 
Through the world esteemed its foe ; 
To be singled out and hissed. 
Pointed at as one unblessed, 
Warned against in whispers faint, 
Lest the children catch a taint ; 
To bear ofP your titles well, — 
Heretic and infidel ? 
If you dare, come now with me, 
Fearless, confident, and free." 

" Thomas, do you dare to be 
Of the great majority ? 



C 57 3 

To be only, as the rest, 

With Heaven's common comforts blessed ; 

To accept, in humble part, 

Truth that shines on every heart ; 

Never to be set on high. 

Where the envious curses fly ; 

Never name or fame to find, 

Still outstripped in soul and mind ; 

To be hid, unless to God, 

As one grass-blade in the sod. 

Underfoot with millions trod ? 

If you dare, come with us be 

Lost in love's great unity." 



c: 58 3 



THE INVISIBLE 

If there is naught but what we see, 

What is the wide world worth to me ? 

But is there naught save what we see ? 

A thousand things on every hand 

My sense is numb to understand : 

I know we eddy round the sun ; 

When has it dizzied any one ? 

I know the round worlds draw from far, 

Through hollow systems, star to star ; 

But who has e'er upon a strand 

Of those great cables laid his hand ? 

What reaches up from room to room 

Of chambered earth, through glare or gloom, 

Through molten flood and fiery blast. 

And binds our hurrying feet so fast ? 

'T is the earth-mother's love, that well 

Will hold the motes that round her dwell ; 

Through granite hills you feel it stir 

As lightly as through gossamer : 

Its grasp unseen by mortal eyes. 

Its grain no lens can analyze. 



c 59 :i 

If there is naught but what we see, 
The friend I loved is lost to me : 
He fell asleep ; who dares to say 
His spirit is so far away ? 
Who knows what wings are round about ? 
These thoughts — who proves but from without 
They still are whispered ? Who can think 
They rise from morning's food and drink ! 
These thoughts that stream on like the sea, 
And darkly beat incessantly 
The feet of some great hope, and break, 
And only broken glimmers make. 
Nor ever climb the shore, to He 
And calmly mirror the far sky. 
And image forth in tranquil deeps 
The secret that its silence keeps. 

Because he never comes, and stands 
And stretches out to me both hands. 
Because he never leans before 
The gate, when I set wide the door 
At morning, nor is ever found 
Just at my side when I turn round. 
Half thinking I shall meet his eyes, 



C 60 ] 

From watching the broad moon-globe rise, 
For all this, shall I homage pay 
To Death, grow cold of heart, and say : 
'' He perished, and has ceased to be ; 
Another comes, but never he " ? 
Nay, by our wondrous being, nay ! 
Although his face I never see 
Through all the infinite To Be, 
I know he lives and cares for me. 



i: 61 3 



A DRIFTING CLOUD 

Born of the shadows that it passes through, 
Incessantly becoming and destroyed, 

Its form unchanged, its substance ever new, 
Builded from its own largess to the void ; 

Of steady purpose innerly aware. 

Yet blindly borne upon the streaming air, — 

Giving itself away, distributing 

Its own abundant heart in splendid showers. 
But not impoverished, since its losses bring 

Perpetual renewing all the hours : 
Drifting, sunlit or shadowed, to the sea, — 

cloud, thou hast a human destiny ! 



I 62 :\ 



WORDSWORTH 

A MOONLIT desert's yellow sands, 
Where, dimmer than its shadow, stands 
A motionless palm-tree here and there, 
And the great stars through amber air 
Burn calm as planets, and the face 
Of earth seems lifting into space : — 

A tropic ocean's starlit rest, 

Along whose smooth and sleeping breast 

Slow swells just stir the mirrored gleams. 

Like faintest sighs in placid dreams ; 

All overhead the night, so high 

And hollow that there seems no sky. 

But the unfathomed deeps, among 

The worlds down endless arches swung : - 

On moonlit plain, and starlit sea. 
Is life's lost charm, tranquiQity. 

A poet found it once, and took 
It home, and hid it in a book, 



C 63 ] 

As one might press a violet. 

There still the odor lingers yet 

Delicious ; from your treasured tomes 

Reach down your Wordsworth, and there comes 

That fragrance which no bard but he 

E'er caught, as if the plain and sea 

Had yielded their serenity. 



[ 64 ] 



PEACE 

'T IS not in seeking, 

'T is not in endless striving, 

Thy quest is found : 
Be still and listen ; 
Be still and drink the quiet 

Of all around. 

Not for thy crying, 

Not for thy loud beseeching. 

Will peace draw near : 
Rest with palms folded ; 
Rest with thine eyelids fallen 

Lo ! peace is here. 



I 65 3 



THE HOUSE AND THE HEART 

Every house with its garret ; 
Lumbered with rubbish and reHcs — 
Spinning-wheels leaning in corners, 
Chests under spider-webbed rafters, 
Brittle and yellow old letters, 
Grandfather's things and grandmother's. 
There overhead, at the midnight, 
Noises of creaking and stepping 
Startle the hush of the chambers — 
Ghosts on their tip-toes repassing. 

Every house with its garden ; 

Some little plot — a half -acre. 

Or a mere strip by the windows. 

Flower-beds and narrow box-borders, 

Something spicily fragrant. 

Something azure and golden. 

There the small feet of the sparrow 

Star the fresh mould round the roses ; 
And, in the shadowy moonlight, 

Wonderful secrets are whispered. 



I 66 3 

Every heart with its garret, 
Cumbered with relics and rubbish — 
Wheels that are silent forever, 
Leaves that are faded and broken, 
Foolish old wishes and fancies, 
Cobwebs of doubt and suspicion — 
Useless, unbeautif ul, growing 
Year by year thicker and faster : 
Naught but a fire or a moving 
Ever can clear it, or clean it. 

Every heart with its garden ; 
Some little corner kept sacred. 
Fragrant and pleasant with blossoms ; 
There the forget-me-nots cluster, 
And pure love-violets, hidden. 
Guessed but by sweetness all round them ; 
Some little strip in the sunshine. 
Cheery and warm, for above it 
Rest the deep, beautiful heavens, 
Blue, and beyond, and forever. 



i: 67 3 



THE FOOL'S FRATER L 

The royal feast was done ; the King 
Sought some new sport to banish care, 

And to his jester cried : " Sir Fool, 

Kneel now, and make for us a prayer ! " 

The jester doffed his cap and bells, 
And stood the mocking court before ; 

They could not see the bitter smile 
Behind the painted grin he wore. 

He bowed his head, and bent his knee 
Upon the monarch's silken stool ; 

His pleading voice arose : ^^ Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! 

" No pity. Lord, could change the heart 

From red with wrong to white as wool ; 
The rod must heal the sin : but. Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! 



C 68 1 

" 'T is not by guilt the onward sweep 

Of truth and right, Lord, we stay ; 
'T is by our folHes that so long 

We hold the earth from heaven away. 

" These cliunsy feet, still in the mire. 
Go crushing blossoms without end ; 
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust 
Among the heart-strings of a friend. 

" The ill-timed truth we might have kept — 

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung ? 
The word we had not sense to say — 
Who knows how grandly it had rung ? 

^^ Our faults no tenderness should ask. 

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all ; 
But for our blunders — oh, in shame 
Before the eyes of heaven we fall. 

" Earth bears no balsam for mistakes; 

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool 
That did his will ; but Thou, Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! '' 



C 69 ] 

The room was hushed ; in silence rose 
The King, and sought his gardens cool, 

And walked apart, and murmured low, 
'' Be merciful to me, a fool ! " 



:i^? 



c: 70 3 



BUT FOR HIM 

Dumb and still was the heart of man 

By the river of Time : 

Far it stretched, and wide and free, 

This rapid river ; on it ran, 

Through many a land and many a cHme, 

On and on, and no tide turned, 

Down and down to Eternity. 

Dumb and still — but the man's heart yearned 
For a voice to break the silence long ; 
And there by the side of the heart of man 
Stood the spirit of Song. 

Then the waves laughed 

Down the river of Time ; 

And the west wind and the south wind sang, 

And the world was glad, 

For now it had 

A voice to utter, in jocund chime, 

The joy it quaffed 

From the river of Time. 



C 71 ] 

But when the song grew low and sad, 

The trees drooped, 

The flowers were dim, 

And a dark cloud down from heaven stooped ; 

The wind mourned, and tear-drops fell ; 

And the world cried, grieving, " But for him 

We had not known but all was well ! " 



C 72 ] 



A REPLY 

To the mother of the world, 
Not for help or light or grace. 
Basely I for comfort came : 
And I brought my craven fears, 
Late amends of useless tears. 
Brought my stumbling feet so lame, 
Hopes with weary pinions furled, 
Every longing unattained, 
All my love with self-love stained, — 
Told them to her grave, mild face. 

And the mother of the world 
Spake, and answered unto me. 
In the brook that past me purled ; 
In the bluebird's heavenly hue. 
When beyond his downward swerve 
Up he glanced, a sweep of blue ; 
In the sunshine's shifting spray. 
Drifted in beneath the tree 
Where I sheltered, lest its flood 



There outside should drown my blood ; 
In the cloud-pearl's melting curve ; 
In the little odorous thrill 
TrembHng from each blossom-bell ; 
In the silence of the sky, 
And the thoughts that from it fell, 
Floating as a snowflake will, — 
So the mother answered me : 

" Child ! it is not thine to see 
Why at all thy life should be. 
Wherefore thou must thus abide, 
Foiled, repulsed, unsatisfied, 
Thou hast not to prove thy right 
To the earth-room and the Hght. 
Thou hast not to justify 
Thought of mine to human eye. 
I have borne thee ! Trust to me ! 
Strength and help are in thy deed ; 
Comfort thou shalt scorn to need. 
Careless what shall come to thee, 
Look but what thy work shall be." 



L 74 3 



THE DESERTER 

Blindest and most frantic prayer, 
Clutching at a senseless boon, 

His that begs, in mad despair. 

Death to come ; — he comes so soon ! 

Like a reveler that strains 

Lip and throat to drink it up — 

The last ruby that remains, 
One red droplet in the cup. 

Like a child that, sullen, mute. 

Sulking spurns, with chin on breast. 

Of the Tree of Life a fruit, 

His gift of whom he is the guest. 

Outcast on the thither shore, 
Open scorn to him shall give 

Souls that heavier burdens bore : — 
" See the wretch that dared not live ! " 



i 75 3 



THE REFORMER 

Before the monstrous wrong he sets him down — 
One man against a stone- walled city of sin. 
For centuries those walls have been a-building ; 
Smooth porphyry, they slope and coldly glass 
The flying storm and wheeling sun. No chink, 
No crevice lets the thinnest arrow in. 
He fights alone, and from the cloudy ramparts 
A thousand evil faces gibe and jeer him. 
Let him lie down and die : what is the right, 
And where is justice, in a world like this ? 
But by and by, earth shakes herself, impatient ; 
And down, in one great roar of ruin, crash 
Watch-tower and citadel and battlements. 
When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier 
Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly 
stars. 



i: 76 ] 



DESIRE OF SLEEP 

It is not death I mean, 
Nor even f orgetf ulness, 
But healthful human sleep, 
Dreamless, and still, and deep, 
Where I would hide and glean 
Some heavenly balm to bless. 

I would not die ; I long 
To live, to see my days 
Bud once again, and bloom, 
And make amidst them room 
For thoughts like birds of song. 
Out-winging happy ways. 

I would not even forget : 
Only, a little while — 
Just now — I cannot bear 
Remembrance with despair ; 
The years are coming yet 
When I shall look, and smile. 



c: 77 :i 

Not now — oh, not to-night ! 
Too clear on midnight's deep 
Come voice and hand and touch ; 
The heart aches overmuch — 

Hush sounds ! shut out the light ! 
A little I must sleep. 



C 78 2 



HER EXPLANATION 

So you have wondered at me, — guessed in vain 
What the real woman is you know so well ? 

I am a lost illusion. Some strange spell 
Once made your friend there, with his fine disdain 
Of fact, conceive me perfect. He would fain 

(But could not) see me always, as befell 

His dream to see me, plucking asphodel, 
In saffron robes, on some celestial plain. 
All that I was he marred and flung away 

In quest of what I was not, could not be, — 

Lilith, or Helen, or Antigone. 
Still he may search ; but I have had my day, 

And now the Past is all the part for me 
That this world's empty stage has left to play. 



C 79 3 



EVE'S DAUGHTER 

I WAITED in the little sunny room : 

The cool breeze waved the window-lace, at play, 
The white rose on the porch was all in bloom, 

And out upon the bay 
I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come. 

" Such an old friend, — she would not make me stay 

While she bound up her hair." I turned, and lo, 
Danae in her shower ! and fit to slay 

AU a man's hoarded prudence at a blow : 
Gold hair, that streamed away 

As round some nymph a sunlit fountain's flow. 
" She would not make me wait ! " — but well I know 

She took a good half -hour to loose and lay 
Those locks in dazzHng disarrangement so ! 



i: 8o 2 



BLINDFOLD 

What do we know of the world, as we grow so old 

and wise ? 
Do the years, that still the heart-beats, quicken the 

drowsy eyes ? 
At twenty we thought we knew it, — the world there, 

at our feet ; 
We thought we had found its bitter, we knew we had 

found its sweet. 
Now at forty and fifty, what do we make of the 

world ? 
There in her sand she crouches, the Sphinx with her 

gray wings furled. 
Soul of a man I know not ; who knoweth, can fore- 
tell, 
And what can I tead of fate, even of self I have 

learned so well ? 
Heart of a woman I know not : how should I hope to 

know, 
I that am foiled by a flower, or the stars of the silent 

snow; 



L 81 3 . 

I that have never guessed the mind of the bright-eyed 

bird, 
Whom even the dull rocks cheat, and the whirlwind's 

awful word ? 
Let me loosen the fillet of clay from the shut and 

darkened lid, 
For life is a blindfold game, and the Voice from view 

is hid. 
I face him as best I can, still groping, here and there. 
For the hand that has touched me lightly, the lips that 

have said, " Declare ! " 
Well, I declare him my friend, — the friend of the 

whole sad race ; 
And oh, that the game were over, and I might see his 

face! 
But 't is much, though I grope in blindness, the Voice 

that is hid from view 
May be heard, may be even loved, in a dream that 

may come true. 



C 82 ] 



RECALL 

" Love me, or I am slain ! " I cried, and meant 
Bitterly true each word. Nights, morns, slipped by, 
Moons, circling suns, yet still alive am I ; 
But shame to me, if my best time be spent 

On this perverse, blind passion ! Are we sent 
Upon a planet just to mate and die, 
A man no more than some pale butterfly 
That yields his day to nature's sole intent ? 

Or is my life but Marguerite's ox-eyed flower. 

That I should stand and pluck and fling away. 

One after one, the petal of each hour, 

Like a love-dreamy girl, and only say, 

" Loves me," and " loves me not," and " loves me " 

Nay ! 
Let the man's mind awake to manhood's power. 



i: 83 :} 



STRANGE 

He died at night. Next day they came 
To weep and praise him : sudden fame 
These suddenly warm comrades gave. 
They called him pure, they called him brave ; 
One praised his heart, and one his brain ; 
All said, You 'd seek his like in vain, — 
Gentle, and strong, and good ; none saw 
In all his character a flaw. 

At noon he wakened from his trance, 
Mended, was well ! They looked askance ; 
Took his hand coldly ; loved him not. 
Though they had wept him ; quite forgot 
His virtues ; lent an easy ear 
To slanderous tongues ; professed a fear 
He was not what he seemed to be ; 
Thanked God they were not such as he ; 
Gave to his hunger stones for bread ; 
And made him, living, wish him dead. 



[ 84 ] 



WIEGENLIED 

Be still and sleep, my soul 1 
Now gentle-footed Night 

In softly shadowed stole, 
Holds all the day from sight. 

Why shouldst thou lie and stare 
Against the dark, and toss. 

And live again thy care. 
Thine agony and loss? 

'T was given thee to live, 
And thou hast Hved it all ; 

Let that suffice, nor give 

One thought what may befall. 

Thou hast no need to wake. 

Thou art no sentinel ; 
Love all the care will take. 

And Wisdom watcheth well. 



C 85 ] 

Weep not, think not, but rest ! 

The stars in silence roll ; 
On the world's mother-breast, 

Be still and sleep, my soul ! 



[ 86 2 



AN ANCIENT ERROR 

He that has and a little tiny wit, — 
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain. 

Leab 

The " sobbing wind/' the " weeping rain/' 

'T is time to give the lie 
To these old superstitions twain, 

That poets sing and sigh. 

Taste the sweet drops, — no tang of brine ; 

Feel them, — they do not burn ; 
The daisy-buds, whereon they shine, 

Laugh, and to blossoms turn. 

There is no natm*al grief or sin ; 

'T is we have flung the pall, 
And brought the sound of sorrow in. 

Pan is not dead at all. 

The merry Pan ! his blithesome look 
Twinkles through sun and rain ; 



C 87 ] 

By ivied rock and rippled brook 
He pipes bis jocund strain. 

If winds have wailed and skies wept tears, 

To poet's vision dim, 
'T was tbat bis own sobs filled bis ears, 

His weeping blinded bim. 

'T is laugbing breeze and singing sbower, 

As ever beart could need ; 
And wbo witb '' bey " and " bo " must lower 

Hatb " tiny wit " indeed. 



i 88 ] 



TO A FACE AT A CONCERT 

When the low music makes a dusk of sound 

About us, and the viol or far-off horn 
Swells out above it like a wind forlorn, 
That wanders seeking something never found. 

What phantom in your brain, on what dim ground, 
Traces its shadowy lines ? What vision, born 
Of unfulfiUment, fades in mere self -scorn. 
Or grows, from that still twilight stealing round ? 

When the Hds droop and the hands lie unstrung. 
Dare one divine your dream, while the chords weave 
Their cloudy woof from key to key, and die, — 

Is it one fate that, since the world was young. 
Has followed man, and makes him half believe 
The voice of instruments a human cry ? 



c; 89 J 



TWO VIEWS OF IT 

" WORLD, glorious world, good-by ! " 
Time but to think it — one wild cry 
Unuttered, a heart-wrung farewell 
To sky and wood and flashing stream, 
All gathered in a last swift gleam, 
As the crag crumbled, and he fell. 

But lo ! the thing was wonderful ! 
After the echoing crash, a lull : 
The great fir on the slope below 
Had spread its mighty mother-arm. 
And caught him, springing like a bow 
Of steel, and lowered him safe from harm. 

'T was but an instant's dark and daze : 
Then, as he felt each limb was sound, 
And slowly from the swooning haze 
The dizzy trees stood still that whirled. 
And the familiar sky and ground, 
There grew with them across his brain 
A dull regret : " So, world, dark world, 
You are come back again ! " 



[ 90 ] 



THE LINKS OF CHANCE 

Holding apoise in air . 
My twice-dipped pen, — for some tense thread of 
thought 

Had snapped, — mine ears were half aware 
Of passing wheels ; eyes saw, but mind saw not, 

My sun-shot linden. Suddenly, as I stare, 
Two shifting visions grow and fade unsought : — 

Noon-blaze : the broken shade 
Of ruins strown. Two Tartar lovers sit : 

She gazing on the ground, face turned, afraid ; 
And he, at her. Silence is all his wit. 

She stoops, picks up a pebble of green jade 
To toss : they watch its flight, unheeding it. 

Ages have roUed away ; 
And round the stone, by chance, if chance there be. 

Sparse soil has caught; a seed, wind-lodged one 
day, 
Grown grass ; shrubs sprung ; at last a tufted tree : 

Lo ! over its snake root yon conquering Bey 
Trips backward, fighting — and half Asia free ! 



C 91 3 



"WORDS, WORDS, WORDS" 

(to one who flouted them as vain) 



Am I not weary of them as your heart 
Or ever Hamlet's was ? — the empty ones, 
Mere breath of passing air, mere hollow tones 
That idle winds to broken reeds impart. 

Have they not cursed my life ? — sounds I mistook 
For sacred verities, — love, faith, delight. 
And the sweet tales that women tell at night, 
When darkness hides the falsehood of the look. 

I was the one of all Ulysses' crew 

(What time he stopped their ears) that leaped and fled 

Unto the sirens, for the honey-dew 

Of their dear songs. The poets me have fed 
With the same poisoned fruit. And even you, — 
Did you not pluck them for me in days dead ? 



C 92 3 



II 



Nay, they do bear a blessing and a power^ — 
Great words and true, that bridge from soul to soul 
The awful cloud-depths that betwixt us roll. 
I will not have them so blasphemed. This hour, 

This little hour of life, this lean to-day, — 
What were it worth but for those mighty dreams 
That sweep from down the past on sounding streams 
Of such high-thoughted words as poets say ? 

What, but for Shakespeare's and for Homer's lay. 
And bards whose sacred names all lips repeat ? 
Words, — only words ; yet, save for tongue and pen 

Of those great givers of them unto men. 
And burdens they still bear of grave or sweet. 
This world were but for beasts, a darkhng den. 



C 93 3 



THE THRUSH 

The thrush sings high on the topmost bough, - 
Low, louder, low again ; and now 
He has changed his tree, — you know not how, 
For you saw no flitting wing. 

All the notes of the forest-throng, 
Flute, reed, and string, are in his song; 
Never a fear knows he, nor wrong. 
Nor a doubt of anything. 

Small room for care in that soft breast ; 
All weather that comes is to him the best. 
While he sees his mate close on her nest. 
And the woods are full of spring. 

He has lost his last year's love, I know, — 
He, too, — but 't is httle he keeps of woe ; 
For a bird forgets in a year, and so 
No wonder the thrush can sing. 



c; 94 ] 



CARPE DIEM 

How the dull thought smites me dumb, 
" It will come ! " and " It will come ! " 
But to-day I am not dead ; 
Life in hand and foot and head 
Leads me on its wondrous ways. 
'T is in such poor, common days, 
Made of morning, noon, and night. 
Golden truth has leaped to light, 
Potent messages have sped. 
Torches flashed with running rays. 
World-runes started on their flight. 

Let it come, when come it must ; 
But To-Day from out the dust 
Blooms and brightens like a flower. 
Fair with love, and faith, and power. 
Pluck it with unclouded will. 
From the great tree Igdrasil. 



[ 95 ] 



SERVICE 

Fret not that the day is gone, 
And thy task is still undone. 
'T was not thine, it seems, at all : 
Near to thee it chanced to fall, 
Close enough to stir thy brain, 
And to vex thy heart in vain. 
Somewhere, in a nook forlorn, 
Yesterday a babe was born : 
He shall do thy waiting task ; 
All thy questions he shall ask. 
And the answers will be given. 
Whispered lightly out of heaven. 
His shall be no stumbling feet. 
Falling where they should be fleet : 
He shall hold no broken clue ; 
Friends shall unto him be true ; 
Men shall love him ; falsehood's aim 
Shall not shatter his good name. 
Day shall nerve his arm with light. 
Slumber soothe him all the night ; 



4 



c 96 :] 

Summer's peace and winter's storm 
. Help him all his will perform. 
'T is enough of joy for thee 
His high service to foresee. 



I 



I 91 3 



THE BOOK OF HOURS 

As one who reads a tale writ in a tongue 
He only partly knows, — runs over it 
And follows but the story, losing wit 

And charm, and half the subtle links among 

The haps and harms that the book's folk beset, — 
So do we with our life. Night comes, and morn 
I know that one has died and one is born ; 

That this by love and that by hate is met. 

But ail the grace and glory of it fail 

To touch me, and the meanings they enfold. 

The Spirit of the World hath told the tale, 
And tells it : and 't is very wise and old. 

But o'er the page there is a mist and veil : 
I do not know the tongue in which 't is told. 



i: 98 ] 



THE WONDERFUL THOUGHT 

It comes upon me in the woods, 
Of all the days, this day in May : 

When wind and rain can never think 
Whose turn 't is now to have its way. 

It finds me as I lie along, 

Blinking up through the swaying trees. 
Half wondering if a man who reads 

" Blue sky " in books that color sees, — 

So fathomless and pure : as if 

All loveliest azure things have gone 

To heaven that way, — the flowers, the sea, — 
And left their color there alone. 

Hark ! leaning on each other's arms. 
The pines are whispering in the breeze. 

Whispering, — then hushing, half in awe 
Their legends of primeval seas. 



[ 99 : 

The wild things of the wood come out, 
And stir or hide, as wild things will, 

Like thoughts that may not be pursued. 
But come if one is calm and still. 

Deep hemlocks down the gorge shut in 
Their caves with hollow shadow filled. 

Where little feathered anchorites 
Behind a sunHt lattice build. 

And glimmering through that lace of boughs. 
Dancing, while they hang darker still. 

Along the restful river shines 

The restless light's incessant thrill : 

As in some sober, silent soul. 

Whose life appears a tranquil stream. 

Through some unguarded rift you catch 
The wildest wishes, all agleam. 

But to my thought — so wonderful ! 

I know if once 't were told, aU men 
Would feel it warm at heart, and life 

Be more than it had ever been. 

•LcfC. 



[ 100 1 

'T would make these flowerless woods laugh out 

With every garden-color bright, 
Where only, now, the dogwood hangs 

Its scattered cloud of ghostly white. 

Those birds would hold no more aloof : — 
How know they I am here, so well ? 

'T is yon woodpecker's warning note ; 
He is their seer and sentinel. 

They use him, but his faithfulness 
Perchance in human fashion pay, — 

Laugh in their feathers at his voice, 
And ridicule his stumbling way. 

That far-off flute-note — hours in vain 

I 've followed it, so shy and fleet ; 
But if I found him, well I know 

His song would seem not half so sweet. 

The swift, soft creatures, — how I wish 
They 'd trust me, and come perch upon 

My shoulders ! Do they guess that then 
Their charm would be forever gone ? 



c loi :] 

But still I prate of sight and sound ; 

Ah, well, 't is always so in rhyme ; 
The idle fancies find a voice, 

The wise thought waits — another time. 



[ 102 ] 



NATURE AND HER CHILD 

As some poor child whose soul is windowless, 
Having not hearing, speech, nor sight, sits lone 
In her dark, silent life, till cometh one 
With a most patient heart, who tries to guess 

Some hidden way to help her helplessness. 

And, yearning for that spirit shut in stone, 

A crystal that has never seen the sun. 

Smooths now the hair, and now the hand will press, 



Or gives a key to touch, then letters raised, 

Its symbol ; then an apple, or a ring, . 

And again letters, — so, all blind and dumb. 

We wait ; the kindly smiles of summer come. 

And soft winds touch our cheek, and thrushes sing ; 

The world-heart yearns, but we stand dull and dazed. 



i 103 3 



THE FOSTER-MOTHER 

As some poor Indian woman 
A captive child receives, 

And warms it in her bosom, 
And o'er its weeping grieves ; 

And comforts it with kisses, 
And strives to understand 

Its eager, lonely babble. 
Fondling the little hand, — 

So Earth, our foster-mother, 
Yearns for us, with her great 

Wild heart, and croons in murmurs 
Low, inarticulate. 

She knows we are white captives, 

Her dusky race above. 
But the deep, childless bosom 

Throbs with its brooding love. 



I 104. 2 



TRUTH AT LAST 

Does a man ever give up hope, I wonder, — 
Face the grim fact, seeing it clear as day ? 
When Bennen saw the snow slip, heard its thunder 
Low, louder, roaring round him, felt the speed 
Grow swifter as the avalanche hurled downward, 
Did he for just one heart-throb — did he indeed 
Know with all certainty, as they swept onward, 
There was the end, where the crag dropped away ? 
Or did he think, even till they plunged and fell. 
Some miracle would stop them ? Nay, they tell 
That he turned round, face forward, calm and pale, 
Stretching his arms out toward his native vale 
As if in mute, unspeakable farewell. 
And so went down. — 'T is something, if at last. 
Though only for a flash, a man may see 
Clear-eyed the future as he sees the past. 
From doubt, or fear, or hope's illusion free. 



C 105 ] 



"QUEM METUI MORITURA?" 

^NEID, rV. 604 

What need have I to fear — so soon to die ? 
Let me work on, not watch and wait in dread : 
What will it matter, when that I am dead, 

That they bore hate or love who near me lie ? 

'T is but a lifetime, and the end is nigh 
At best or worst. Let me lift up my head 
And firmly, as with inner courage, tread 

Mine own appointed way, on mandates high. 

Pain could but bring, from all its evil store, 

The close of pain : hate's venom could but kill ; 

Repulse, defeat, desertion, could no more. 
Let me have lived my life, not cowered until 

The unhindered and unhastened hour was here. 

So soon — what is there in the world to fear ? 



[ 106 n 



A MORNING THOUGHT 

What if some morningj when the stars were paling, 
And the dawn whitened, and the East was clear, 

Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence 
Of a benignant Spirit standing near : 

And I should tell him, as he stood beside me, 

" This is our Earth — most friendly Earth, and 
fair ; 

Daily its sea and shore through sun and shadow 
Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air : 

" There is blest living here, loving and serving. 
And quest of truth, and serene friendships dear ; 

But stay not. Spirit ! Earth has one destroyer, — 
His name is Death : flee, lest he find thee here ! " 

And what if then, while the still morning brightened, 
And freshened in the elm the Summer's breath. 

Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel 

And take my hand and say, ^' My name is Death." 



C 107 ] 



THE HERMITAGE 

California, Bay of San Francisco, 1866 



A LIFE, — a common, cleanly, quiet life, 
Full of good citizenship and repute. 
New, but with promise of prosperity, — 
A well-bred, fair, young-gentlemanly life, — 
What business had a girl to bring her eyes. 
And her blonde hair, and her clear, ringing voice, 
And break up life, as a bell breaks a dream? 
Had Love Christ's wrath, and did this life sell doves 
In the world's temple, that Love scourged it forth 
Beyond the gates? Within, the worshipers, — 
Without, the waste, and the hill-country, where 
The life, with smarting shoulders and stung heart, 
Unknowing that the hand which scourged could heal, 
Drave forth, blind, cursing, in despair to die. 
Or work its own salvation out in fear. 



Old World — old, foolish, wicked World — farewell ! 
Since the Time-angel left my soul with thee, 
Thou hast been a hard stepmother unto me. 
Now I at last rebel 

Against thy stony eyes and cruel hands. 
I will go seek in far-off lands 
Some quiet corner, where my years shall be 
Still as the shadow of a brooding bird 
That stirs but with her heart-beats. Far, unheard 
May wrangle on the noisy human host, 
While I will face my Life, that silent ghost. 
And force it speak what it would have with me. 

Not of the fair young Earth, 
The snow-crowned, sunny-belted globe; 
Not of its skies, nor Twilight's purple robe. 
Nor pearly dawn; not of the flowers' birth. 
And Autumn's forest-funerals; not of storms. 
And quiet seas, and clouds' incessant forms; 
Not of the sanctuary of the night. 
With its solemnities, nor any sight 
And pleasant sound of all the friendly day: 
But I am tired of what we call our lives; 
Tired of the endless humming in the hives, — 



I 109 n 

Sick of the bitter honey that we eat, 
And sick of cursing all the shallow cheat. 

Let me arise, and away 
To the land that guards the dying day, 
Whose burning tear, the evening-star. 
Drops silently to the wave afar ; 
The land where summers never cease 
Their sunny psalm of Hght and peace. 
Whose moonlight, poured for years untold. 
Has drifted down in dust of gold ; 
Whose morning splendors, fallen in showers. 
Leave ceaseless sunrise in the flowers. 

There I will choose some eyrie in the hills. 
Where I may build, like a lonely bird. 
And catch the whispered music heard 
Out of the noise of human ills. 



So, I am here at last ; 
A purer world, whose feet the old, salt Past 
Washes against, and leaves it fresh and free 
As a new island risen from the sea. 



c: lion 

Three dreamy weeks we lay on Ocean's breast, 
Rocked asleep, by gentle winds caressed, 
Or crooned with wild wave-lullabies to rest. 
A memory of foam and glassy spray ; 
Wave chasing wave, like young sea-beasts at play ; 
Stretches of misty silver 'neath the moon. 
And night-airs murmuring many a quiet tune. 
Three long, deHcious weeks' monotony 
Of sky, and stars, and sea. 
Broken midway by one day's tropic scene 
Of giant plants, tangles of luminous green. 
With fiery flowers and purple fruits between. 



I have found a spot for my hermitage, — 
No dank and sunless cave, — 
I come not for a dungeon, nor a cage, — 
Not to be Nature's slave, 
But, as a weary child, 
Unto the mother's faithful arms I flee, 
And seek the sunniest footstool at her knee, 
Where I may sit beneath caresses mild. 
And hear the sweet old songs that she will sing 
to me. 



l 111 2 

'T is a grassy mountain-ncok, 
In a gorge, whose foaming brook 
Tumbles through from the heights above, 
Merrily leaping to the Hght 
From the pine-wood's haunted gloom, — 
As a romping child, 
Affrighted, from a sombre room 
Leaps to the sunshine, laughing with deHght : 
Be this my home, by man's tread undefiled. 
Here sounds no voice but of the mourning dove, 
Nor harsher footsteps on the sands appear 
Than the sharp, slender hoof -marks of the deer, 
Or where the quail has left a zigzag row 
Of hghtly printed stars her track to show. 

Above me frowns a front of rocky wall. 
Deep cloven into ruined pillars tall 
And sculptures strange ; bald to its dizzy edge. 
Save where, in some deep crevice of a ledge 
Buttressed by its black shadow hung below, 
A solitary pine has cleft the rock, — 
Straight as an arrow, feathered to the tip. 
As if a shaft from the moon-huntress' bow 
Had struck and grazed the cliff's defiant lip, 
And stood, still stiffly quivering with the shock. 



Beyond the gorge a slope runs half-way up, 
With hollow curve as for a giant's cup, 
Brimming with blue pine-shadows : then in air 
The gray rock rises bare> 
Its front deep-fluted by the sculptor-storms 
In moulded columns, rounded forms, 
As if great organ-pipes were chiseled there, 
Whose anthems are the torrent's roar below, 
And chanting winds that through the pine- tops go. 
Here bursts of requiem music sink and rise. 
When the full moonlight, slowly streaming, lies 
Like panes of gold on some cathedral pave, 
While floating mists their silver incense wave. 
And from on high, through fleecy window-bars. 
Gaze down the saintly faces of the stars. 

Against the huge trunk of a storm-snapped tree, 
(Whose hollow, ready-hewn by long decay, 
Above, a chimney, lined with slate and clay. 
Below, a broad-arched fireplace makes for me,) 
I 've built of saplings and long limbs a hut. 
The roof with lacing boughs is tightly shut. 
Thatched with thick-spreading palms of pine, 
And tangled over by a wandering vine, 



Uprooted from the woods close by. 

Whose clasping tendrils climb and twine, 

Waving their little hands on high, 

As if they loved to deck this nest of mine. 

Within, by smooth white stones from the brook's 

beach 
My rooms are separated, each from each. 
On yonder island-rock my table 's spread. 
Brook-ringed, that no stray, fasting ant may come 
To make himself with my wild fare at home. 

Here will I live, and here my life shall be 
Serene, still, rooted steadfastly, 
Yet pointing skyward, and its motions keep 
A rhythmic balance, as that cedar tall. 
Whose straight shaft rises from the chasm there. 
Through the blue, hollow air. 
And, measuring the dizzy deep. 
Leans its long shadow on the rock's gray wall. 



Through the sharp gap of the gorge below, 
From my mountains' feet the gaze may go 
Over a stretch of fields, broad-sunned. 



Then glance beyond. 

Across the beautiful bay, 

To that dim ridge, a score of miles away, 

Lifting its clear-cut outline high, 

Azure with distance on the azure sky, 

Whose flocks of white clouds brooding on its crests 

Have winged from ocean to their piny nests. 

Beyond the bright blue water's further rim, 

Where waves seem ripples on its far-off brim. 

The rich young city lies, 

Diminished to an ant-hill's size. 

I trace its steep streets, ribbing all the hill 

Like narrow bands of steel. 

Binding the city on the shifting sand : 

Thick-pressed between them stand 

Broad piles of buildings, pricked through here and 

there 
By a sharp steeple ; and above, the air 
Murky with smoke and dust, that seem to show 
The bright sky saddened by the sin below. 



The voice of my wild brook is marvelous ; 
Leaning above it from a jutting rock 



To watch the image of my face, that forms 

And breaks, and forms again (as the image of God 

Is broken and re-gathered in a soul), 

I listen to the chords that sink and swell 

From many a httle fall and babbling run. 

That hollow gurgle is the deepest bass ; 

Over the pebbles gush contralto tones. 

While shriller trebles tinkle merrily. 

Running, Hke some enchanted-fingered flute, 

Endless chromatics. 

Now it is the hum 
And roar of distant streets ; the rush of winds 
Through far-off forests : now the noise of rain 
Drumming the roof ; the hiss of ocean-foam : 
Now the swift ripple of piano-keys 
In mad mazurkas, danced by laughing girls. 

So, night and day, the hurrpng brook goes on ; 
Sometimes in noisy glee, sometimes far down. 
Silent along the bottom of the gorge, 
Like a deep passion hidden in the soul, 
That chafes in secret hunger for its sea : 
Yet not so still but that heaven finds its course ; 



i: 116 3 

And not so hid but that the yearning night 
Broods over it, and feeds it with her stars. 



When earth has Eden spots like this for man, 
Why will he drag his life where lashing storms 
Whip him indoors, the petulant weather's slave ? 
There he is but a helpless, naked snail, 
Except he wear his house close at his back. 
Here the wide air builds him his palace walls, — 
Some little corner of it roofed, for sleep ; 
Or he can lie all night, bare to the sky, 
And feel updrawn against the breast of heaven; 
Letting his thoughts stretch out among the stars. 
As the antennae of an insect grope 
Blindly for food, or as the ivy's shoots 
Clamber from cope and tower to find the light. 
And drink the electric pulses of the sun. 

As from that sun we draw the coarser fire 
That swells the veins, and builds the brain and bone. 
So from each star a finer influence streams, 
Kindling within the mortal chrysalis 
The first faint thrills of its new life to come. 



i 



c 117 :i 

Here is no niggard gap of sky above, 
With murk and mist below, but all sides clear, — 
Not an inch bated from the full-swung dome ; 
Each constellation to the horizon's rim 
Keen-glittering, as if one only need 
Walk to the edge there, spread his wings, and float, 
The dark earth spurned behind, into the blue. 



I love thee, thou brown, homely, dear old Earth ! 
Those fairer planets whither fate may lead. 
Whatever marvel be their bulk or speed, 
Kinged with what splendor, belted round with fire, 
In glory of perpetual moons arrayed, 
Can ne'er give back the glow and fresh desire 
Of youth in that old home where man had birth, 
Whose paths he trod through wholesome light and 

shade. 
Out of their silver radiance to thy dim 
And clouded orb his eye will turn. 
As an old man looks back to where he played 
About his father's hearth, and finds for him 
No splendor like the fires which there did burn. 



i; 118 ;] 

See : I am come to live alone with thee. 
Thou hast had many a one, grown old and worn, 
Come to thee weary and forlorn, 
Bent with the weight of human vanity. 
But I come with my life almost untried. 
In thy perpetual presence to abide. 
Teach me thy wisdom ; let me learn the flowers. 
And know the rocks and trees, 
And touch the springs of all thy hidden powers. 
Let the still gloom of thy rock-fastnesses 
Fall deep upon my spirit, till the voice 
Of brooks become familiar, and my heart rejoice 
With joy of birds and winds ; and all the hours, 
Unmaddened by the babble of vain men. 
Bring thy most inner converse to my ken. 
So shall it be, that, when I stand 
On that next planet's ruddy-shimmering strand, 
I shall not seem a pert and forward child 
Seeking to dabble in abstruser lore 
With alphabet unlearned, who in disgrace 
Returns, upon his primer yet to pore — 
But those examiners, all wise and mild. 
Shall gently lead me to my place, 



As one that faithfully did trace 

These simpler earthly records o'er and o'er. 



Beckoned at sunrise by the surf's white hand, 
I have strayed down to sit upon the beach, 
And hear the oratorio of the Sea. 
On this steep, crumbling bank, where the high tides 
Have crunched the earth away, a crooked oak — 
A hunch-backed dwarf, whose limbs, cramped down 

by gales. 
Have twisted stiffening back upon themselves — 
Spreads me a Httle arbor from the sun. 

On the brown, shining beach, all ripple-carved. 
Gleams now and then a pool ; so smooth and clear, 
That, though I cannot see the plover there 
Pacing its farther edge (so much he looks 
The color of the sand), yet I can trace 
His image hanging in the glassy brine — 
Slim legs and rapier-beak — like silver-plate 
With such a pictured bird clean-etched upon it. 

Beyond, long curves of little shallow waves 
Creep, tremulous with ripples, to the shore, 



Till the whole bay seems slowly sliding in, 
With edge of snow that melts against the sand. 

Above its twinkling blue, where ceaselessly 
The white curve of a slender arm of foam 
Is reached along the water, and withdrawn, 
A flock of sea-birds darken into specks ; 
Then whiten, as they wheel with sunlit wings, 
Winking and wavering against the sky. 

The earth for form, the sea for coloring, 
And overhead, fair daughters of the two. 
The clouds, whose curves were moulded on the hills, 
Whose tints of pearl and foam the ocean gave. 

Sea, thou art all-beautiful, but dumb ! 
Thou hast no utterance articulate 
For human ears ; only a restless moan 
Of barren tides, that loathe the living earth 
As aHen, striving towards the barren moon. 
Thou art no longer infinite to man : 
Has he not touched thy boundary-shores, and now 
Laid his electric fetters round thy feet ? 



Thy dumb moan saddens me ; let me go back 
And listen to the silence of the hills. 



At last I live alone : 
No human judgment-seats are here 
Thrust in between man and his Maker's throne, 
With praise to covet, or with frown to fear : 
No small, distorted judgments bless, or blame ; 
Only to Him I own 
The inward sense of worth, or flush of shame. 

God made the man alone ; 
And all that first grand morning walked he so. 
Then was he strong and wise, till at the noon. 
When tired with joyous wonder he lay prone 
For rest and sleep, God let him know 
The subtile sweetness that is bound in Two. 

Man rises best alone : 
Upward his thoughts stream, like the leaping flame. 
Whose base is tempest-blown ; 
Upward and skyward, since from thence they came. 
And thither they must flow. 



But when in twos we go, 

The lightnings of the brain weave to and fro, 

Level across the abyss that parts us all ; 

If upward, only slantwise, as we scale 

Slowly together that night-shrouded wall 

Which bounds our reason, lest our reason fail. 

If linked in threes, and fives. 

However heavenward the spirit strives. 

The lowest stature draws the highest down, — 

The king must keep the level of the clown. 

The grosser matter has the greater power 

In all attraction ; every hour 

We slide and slip to lower scales, 

Till weary aspiration fails. 

And that keen fire which might have pierced the 

skies 
Is quenched and killed in one another's eyes. 



A child had blown a bubble fair 
That floated in the sunny air : 
A hundred rainbows danced and swung 
Upon its surface, as it hung 
In films of changing color rolled, 



>> 



Crimson, and amethyst, and gold, 
With faintest streaks of azure sheen, 
And curdling rivulets of green. 
" If so the surface shines," cried he, 
" What marvel must the centre be ! 
He caught it — on his empty hands 
A drop of turbid water stands ! 



With men, to help the moments fly, 
I tossed the ball of talk on high, 
With glancing jest, and random stings. 
Grazing the crests of thoughts and things. 
In many a shifting ray of speech 
That shot swift sparkles, each to each. 
I thought, " Ah, could we pierce below 
To inner soul, what depths would show ! " 
In friendships many, loves a few, 
I pierced the inner depths, and knew 
'T was but the shell that splendor caught : 
Within, one sour and selfish thought. 

I found a grotto, hidden in the gorge. 
Paved by the brook in rare mosaic work 
Of sand, and lucent depths, and shadow-streaks 



Veining the amber of the sun-dyed wave. 
Between two mossy masses of gray rock 
Lay a clear basin, which, with sun and shade 
Bewitched, a great transparent opal made, 
Over whose broken rims the water ran. 
Above each rocky side leaned waving trees 
Whose lace of branches wove a restless roof, 
Trailed over by green vines that sifted down 
A dust of sunshine through the chilly shade. 

Leaning against a trunk of oak, rock-wedged, 
Whose writhen roots were clenched upon the stones, 
I was a Greek, and caught the sudden flash 
Of a scared Dryad's vanishing robe, and heard 
The laughter, half -suppressed, of hiding Fauns. 
Up the dark stairway of the tumbling stream 
The sun shot through, and struck each foamy fall 
Into a silvery veil of dazzHng fire. 
Along its shady course, the tossing drops 
By some swift sunbeam ever caught, were lit 
To sparkling stars, that fell, and flashed, and fell. 
Incessantly rekindled. Bubble-troops 
Came dancing by, to break just at my feet; 
Lo ! every bubble mirrored the whole scene — 



1 125 n 

The streak of blue between the roofing-boughs, 
And on it my own face in miniature 
Quaintly distorted, as if some small elf 
Peered up at me beneath his glassy dome. 



If men but knew the mazes of the brain 
And all its crowded pictures, they would need 
No Louvre or Vatican : behind our brows 
Intricate galleries are built, whose walls 
Are rich with all the splendors of a life. 
Each crimson leaf of every autumn walk, 
Dewdrops of childhood's mornings, every scene 
From any window where we 've chanced to stand. 
Forgotten sunsets, summer afternoons. 
Hang fresh in those immortal galleries. 
Few ever can unlock them, till great Death 
Unrolls our lifelong memory as a scroll. 
One key is solitude, and silence one. 
And one a quiet mind, content to rest 
In God's sufficiency, and take His world. 
Not dabbHng all the Master's work to death 
With our small interference. God is God. 



Yet we must give the children leave to use 
Our garden-tools, though they spoil tool and plant 
In learning. So the Master may not scorn 
Our awkwardness, as with these bungling hands 
We try to uproot the ill, and plant with good 
Life's barren soil : the child is learning use. 
Perhaps the angels even are forbid 
To laugh at us, or may not care to laugh, 
With kind eyes pitying our little hurts. 

'T is ludicrous that man should think he roams 
Freely at will a world planned for his use. 
Lo, what a mite he is ! Snatched hither and yon, 
Tossed round the sun, and in its orbit flashed 
Kound other centres, orbits without end ; 
His bit of brain too small to even feel 
The spinning of the little hailstone. Earth. 
So his creeds glibly prate of choice and will, 
When his whole fate is an invisible speck 
Whirled through the orbits of Eternity. 



We think that we believe 
That human souls shall live, and live, 



When trees have rotted into mould, 

And all the rocks which these long hills enfold 

Have crumbled, and beneath new oceans lie. 

But why — ah, why — 

If puny man is not indeed to die. 

Watch I with such disdain 

That human speck creeping along the plain, 

And turn with such a careless scorn of men 

Back to the mountain's brow again, 

And feel more pleased that some small, fluttering 

thing 
Trusts me and hovers near on fearless wing, 
Than if the proudest man in all the land 
Had offered me in friendliness his hand ? 



However small the present creature man, — 
Ridiculous imitation of the gods, 
W^k plagiarism on some completer world, — 
Yet we can boast of that strong race to be. 
The savage broke the attraction which binds fast 
The fibres of the oak, and we to-day 
By cunning chemistry can force apart 
The elements of the air. That coming race 



I 128 ^ 

Shall loose the bands by which the earth attracts ; 
A drop of occult tincture, a spring touched 
Shall outwit gravitation ; men shall float, 
Or lift the hills and set them where they will. 
The savage crossed the lake, and we the sea. 
That coming race shall have no bounds or bars, 
But, like the fledgeHng eaglet, leave the nest, — 
Our earthly eyrie up among the stars, — 
And freely soar, to tread the desolate moon. 
Or mingle with the neighbor folk of Mars. 
Yea, if the savage learned by sign and sound 
To bridge the chasm to his fellow's brain. 
Till now we flash our whispers round the globe. 
That race shall signal over the abyss 
To those bright souls who throng the outer courts 
Of life, impatient who shall greet men first 
And solve the riddles that we die to know. 



'T is night : I sit alone among the hills. 
There is no sound, except the sleepless brook. 
Whose voice comes faintly from the depths below 
Through the thick darkness, or the sombre pines 
That slumber, miu*muring sometimes in their dreams. 



Hark ! on a fitful gust there came the sound 

Of the tide rising yonder on the bay. 

It dies again : 't was like the rustling noise 

Of a great army mustering secretly. 

There rose an owl's cry, from the woods below, 

Like a lost spirit's. — Now all 's still again. — 

'T is almost fearful to sit here alone 

And feel the deathly silence and the dark. 

I will arise and shout, and hear at least 

My own voice answer. — Not an echo even ! 

I wish I had not uttered that wild cry ; 

It broke with such a shock upon the air. 

Whose leaden silence closed up after it, 

And seemed to clap together at my ears. 

The black depths of these muffled woods are thronged 

With shapes that wait some signal to swoop out, 

And swirl around and madden me with fear. 

I will go climb that bare and rocky height 

Into the clearer air. 

So, here I breathe ; 
That silent darkness smothered me. 

Away 
Across the bay, the city with its lights 



C ISO ] 

Twinkling against the horizon's dusky line. 
Looks a sea-dragon, crawled up on the shore, 
With rings of fire across his rounded back, 
And luminous claws spread out among the hills. 
Above, the glittering heavens. — Magnificent ! 
Oh, if a man could be but as a star. 
Having his place appointed, here to rise, 
And there to set, unchanged by earthly change, 
Content if it can guide some wandering bark, 
Or be a beacon to some homesick soul ! 

Those city-lights again : they draw my gaze 
As if some secret human sympathy 
Still held my heart down from the lonely heaven. 
A new-born constellation, settling there 
Below the Sickle's ruby-hilted curve. 

They gleam Not so ! No constellation they ; 

I mock the sad, strong stars that never fail 

In their eternal patience ; from below 

Comes that pale glare, like the faint, sulphurous flame 

Which plays above the ashes of a fire : 

So trembles the dull flicker of those lamps 

Over the burnt-out energies of man. 



c 131 :\ 



II 

A month since I last laid my pencil down, — 
An April, fairer than the Atlantic June, 
Whose calendar of perfect days was kept 
By daily blossoming of some new flower. 
The fields, whose carpets now were silken white, 
Next week were orange-velvet, next, sea-blue. 
It was as if some central fire of bloom. 
From which in other climes a random root 
Is now and then shot up, here had burst forth 
And overflowed the fields, and set the land 
Aflame with flowers. I watched them day by day, 
How at the dawn they wake, and open wide 
Their little petal- windows, how they turn 
Their slender necks to follow round the sun, 
And how the passion they express all day 
In burning color, steals forth with the dew 
All night in odor. 

I have wandered much 
These weeks, but everywhere a restless mind 
Has dogged me hke the shadow at my heels. 



[ 132 ] 

Sometimes I watched the morning mist arise, 

Like an imprisoned Genie from the sti*eam, 

And wished that death would come on me hke dawn, 

Drawing the spirit, that white, vaporous mist, 

Up from this noisy, fretted stream of hf e. 

To fall where Grod will, in his bounteous showers. 

Sometimes I walked at sunset on the edge 

Of the steep gorge, and saw my shadow pace 

Alonor a shadow-wall across the abvss. 

And felt that we. with all our phantom deeds. 

Are but far-slanted shadows of some life 

That walks between our planet and its God. 

All the long nights — those memory-haunted nights, 

When sleepless conscience would not let me sleep, 

But stimg, and stimg, and pointed to the world 

Which like a coward I had left behind, 

I watched the heavens, where week by week the moon 

Slow swelled its silver bud. blossomed full grold, 

And slowly faded. 

Laid the pencil down — 
Why not ? Are there not books enough ? Is man 
A sick child that must be amused by songs. 
Or be made sicker with their foolish noise ? 



C 133 ] 

Then illness came : I should have argued; once, 
That the iU body gave me those iU thoughts ; 
But I have learned that spirit, though it be 
Subtile, and hard to trace, is mightier 
Than matter, and I know the poisoned mind 
Poisoned its shell. Three davs of fever-fire 
Burned out my strength, leaving me soarcelv power 
To reach the brook's side and mv scanty food. 
What would I not have given to hear the voice 
Of some one who would raise mv throbbinor head 
And shade the f everino^ sun, and cool my hand 
In her moist palms ! But I lay there, alone. 
Blessed be sickness, which cuts down our pride 
And bares our helplessness. I have had new thoughts. 
I think the fever burned away some Hes 
Which clogged the truthful currents of the brain. 
Am I quite happy here ? Have I the right, 
As whoUy independent, to scorn men ? 
What do I owe them — self ? Should I be I, 
Born in these hills ? A savage rather ! Food, 
The sailor-bread ? Yes, that took mill and men : 
Yet flesh and fowl are free ; but powder and <mn — 
What himian Hves went to the makins: of them ? 
I am dependent as the villager 



../ 



Who lives by the white wagon's daily round. 
Yea, better feed upon the ox, to which 
The knife is mercy after slavery, 
Than kill the innocent birds, and trustful deer 
Whose big blue eyes have almost human pain ; 
That 's murder ! 

I scorned books : to those same books 
I owe the power to scorn them. 

I despised 
Men : from themselves I drew the pure ideal 
By which to measure them. 

At woman's love 
I laughed : but to that love I owe ^ 
The hunger for a more abiding love. 
Their nestlings in our hearts leave vacant there 
These hollow places, like a lark's round nest 
Left empty in the grass, and filled with flowers. 



What do I here alone ? 'T was not so strange. 
Weary of discords, that I chose to hear 
The one, clear, perfect note of solitude ; 
But now it plagues the ear, that one shrill note : 
Give me the chords back, even though some ring false. 



Unmarried to the steel, the flint is cold : 
Strike one to the other, and they wake in fire. 

A solitary fagot will not burn : 
Bring two, and cheerily the flame ascends. 
Alone, man is a lifeless stone ; or lies 
A charring ember, smouldering into ash. 



If the man riding yonder looks a speck. 
The town an ant-hill, that is but the trick 
Of our perspective : wisdom merely means 
Correction of the angles at the eye. 
I hold my hand up, so, before my face, — 
It blots ten miles of country, and a town. 
This httle lying lens, that twists the rays. 
So cheats the brain that My house. My affairs. 
My hunger, or My happiness, My ache. 
And My religion, fill immensity ! 
Yours merely dot the landscape casually. 
'T is well God does not measure a man's worth 
By the image on his neighbor's retina. 



[ 136 ] 

I am alone : the birds care not for me, 
Except to sing a little farther off, 
With looks that say, " What does this fellow 

here?" 
The loud brook babbles only for the flowers : 
The mountain and the forest take me not 
Into their meditations ; I disturb 
Their silence, as a child that drags his toy 
Across a chapeFs porch. The viewless ones 
Who flattered me to claim their company 
By gleams of thought they tossed to me for alms. 
About their grander matters turn, nor deign 
To notice me, unless it were to say — 
As we put off a troublesome child — " There, go ! 
Men are your fellows, go and mate with them ! " 



If I could find one soul that woidd not lie, 
I would go back, and we would arm our hands. 
And strike at every ugly weed that stands 

In God's wide garden of the world, and try. 
Obedient to the Gardener's commands. 

To set some smallest flowers before we die. 



C 137 ] 

One such I had found, — 
But she was bound, 
Fettered and led, bid for and sold. 
Chained to a stone by a ring of gold. 

In a stony sense the stone loved her, too : 
Between our places the river was broad. 
Should she tread on a broken heart to go through — 
Could she put a man's life in mid-stream to be trod, 
To come over dry-shod ? 



Shame ! that a man with hand and brain 
Should, like a love-lorn girl, complain. 
Rhyming his dainty woes anew, 
When there is honest work to do ! 

What work, what work ? Is God not wise 
To rule the world He could devise ? 
Yet see thou, though the realm be His, 
He governs it by deputies. 
Enough to know of Chance and Luck, 
The stroke we choose to strike is struck ; 
The deed we slight will slighted be, 



In spite of all Necessity. 
The Parcse's web of good and ill 
They weave with human shuttle still, 
And fate is fate through man's free will. 



With sullen thoughts that smoulder hour by hour, 
In vague expectancy of help or hope 
Which still eludes my brain, waiting I sit 
Like a blind beggar at a palace-gate, 
Who hears the rustling past of silks, and airs 
Of costly odor mock him blowing by. 
And feels within a dull and aching wish 
That the proud wall would let some coping down 
To crush him dead, and let him have his rest. 

No help from men : they could not, if they would. 
And God ? He lets His world be wrung with pain. 
No help at all then ? Let hf e be in vain : 
To get no help is surely greatest gain ; 
To taunt the hunger down is sweetest food. 



C 139 ] 

mocker, Memory ! From what floating cloud, 
Or from what witchery of the haunted wood. 
Or faintest perfumes, softly drifting through 
The lupines' lattice-bars of white and blue. 
Steals back upon my soul this weaker mood ? 
My heart is dreaming ; — in a shadowy room 
I breathe the vague scent of a jasmin-bloom 
That floats on waves of music, softer played, 
Till song and odor all the brain pervade ; 
Swiftly across my cheek there sweeps the thrill 
Of burning lips, — then all is hushed and still ; 
And round the vision in unearthly awe 
Deeps of enchanted starlight seem to draw. 
In which my soul sinks, falling noiselessly — 
As from a lone ship, far-off, in the night. 
Out of a child's hand slips a pebble white. 
Glimmering and fading down the awful sea. 



That night, which pushed me out of Paradise, 
When the last guest had taken his mask of smiles 
And gone, she wheeled a sofa from the light 
Where I sat touching the piano-keys. 
And begged me play her weariness away. 



C 140 ] 

I played all sweet and solemn airs I knew. 
And when, with music mesmerized, she slept, 
I made the deep chords tell her dreams my love. 
Once, when they grew too passionate, I saw 
The faint blush ripen in their glow, and chide, 
Even in dreams, the rash, tumultuous thought. 
Then when I made them say, "Sleep on, dream on, 
For now we are together ; when thou wak'st 
For evermore we are alone — alone," 
She sighed in sleep, and waked not : then I rose, 
And softly stooped my head, and, half in awe, 
Half passion-rapt. I kissed her lips farewell. 

Onlv the meek-mouthed blossoms kiss I now, 

Or the cold cheek that sometimes comes at night 
In haunted di*eams, and brushes past my own. 

Ah, what hast thou to do with me, sweet song — 
Whv hauntest thou and vexest so mv dreams ? 

Have I not turned away from thee so long — 
So long, and yet the starry midnight seems 

Astir with tremulous music, as of old, — 

Forbidden memories opening, fold on fold ? 

ghost of Love, why, with thy rose-leaf hps. 
Dost thou still mock my sleep with kisses warm, 



[ 141 ] 

Torturing my dreams with touching finger tips, 
That madden me to clasp thy phantom form ? 
Have I not earned, by all these tears, at last. 
The right to rest untroubled by that Past ? 



Unto thy patient heart, my mother Earth, 
I come, a weary child. 

I have no claim, save that thou gav'st me birth, 
And hast sustained me with thy nurture mild. 
I have stood up alone these many years ; 
Now let me come and he upon my face. 
And spread my hands among the dewy grass. 
Till the slow wind's mesmeric touches pass 
Above my brain, and all its throbbing chase ; 
Into thy bosom take these bitter tears. 
And let them seem unto the innocent flowers 
Only as dew, or heaven's gentle showers ; 
Till, quieted and hushed against thy breast, 
I can forget to weep, 
And sink at last to sleep, — 
Long sleep and rest. 



I 142 ] 

Her face ! 
It must have been her face, — 
No other one was ever half so fair, — 
No other head e'er bent with such meek grace 
Beneath that weight of beautiful blonde hair. 
In a carriage on the street of the town, 
Where I had strayed in walking from the bay. 
Just as the sun was going down. 
Shielding her sight from his latest ray, 
She sat, and scanned with eager eye 
The faces of the passers-by. 
Whom was she looking for ? Not me — 
Yet what wild purpose can it be 
That tempted her to this wild land ? 
— I marked that on her lifted hand 
The diamonds no longer shine 
Of the ring that meant, not mine — not mine ! 

Ah fool — fool — fool ! crawl back to thy den. 
Like a wounded beast as thou art, again ; 
Whosever she be, not thine — not thine ! 



I sat last night on yonder ridge of rocks 
To see the sun set over Tamalpais, 



[ 143 ] 

Whose tented peak, suffused with rosy mist, 
Blended the colors of the sea and sky 
And made the mountain one great amethyst 
Hanging against the sunset. 

In the west 
There lay two clouds which parted company, 
Floating like two soft-breasted swans, and sailed 
Farther and farther separate, till one stayed 
To make a mantle for the evening-star ; 
The other wept itself away in rain. 
A fancy seized me ; — if , in other worlds. 
That Spirit from afar should call to me, 
Across some starry chasm impassable. 
Weeping, " Oh, hadst thou only come to me ! — 
I loved you so ! — I prayed each night that God 
Would send you to me ! Now, alas ! too late, 
Too late — farewell ! " and still again, " farewell ! " 
Like the pulsation of a silenced bell 
Whose sobs beat on within the brain. 

I rose. 
And smote my staff strongly against the ground. 
And set my face homeward, and set my heart 



[ 144 ;] 

Firm in a passionate purpose : there, in haste, 
With that one echo goading me to speed, 
" K it should be too late — if it should be 
Too late — too late ! " I took a pen and wrote : 

" Dear Soul, if I am mad to speak to thee, 
And this faint glimmer which I call a hope 
Be but the corpse-light on the grave of hope — 
If thou, darling Star, art in the West 
To be my Evening-star, and watch my day 
Fade slowly into desolate twilight, burn 
This folly in the flames ; and scattered with 
Its ashes, let my madness be forgot. 
But if not so, oh be my Morning-star, 
And crown my East with splendor : come to me ! " 



A stern, wild, broken place for a man to walk 
And muse on broken fortunes ; a rare place, — 
There in the Autumn weather, cool and stiU, 
With the warm sunshine clinging round the rocks 
Softly, in pity, like a woman's love, — 
To wait for some one who can never come — 
As a man there was waiting. Overhead 



C 145 ] 

A happy bird sang quietly to himself, 
Unconscious of such sombre thoughts below, 
To which the song was background : — 

" Yet how men 
Sometimes will struggle, writhe, and scream at death ! 
It were so easy now, in the mild air. 
To close the senses, slowly sleep, and die ; 
To cease to be the shaped and definite cloud, 
And melt away into the fathomless blue ; — 
Only to touch this crimson thread of life, 
Whose steady ripple pulses in my wrist. 
And watch the little current soak the grass, 
Till the haze came, then darkness, and then rest. 
Would God be angry if I stopped one life 
Among His myriads — such a worthless one ? 
If I should pray, I wonder would He send 
An angel down out of that great, white cloud, 
(He surely could spare one from praising Him,) 
To tell if there is any better way 
Than — Look ! Why, that is grand, now ! (Am I 

mad? 
I did not think I should go mad !) That 's grand — 
One of the blessed spirits come like this 



To meet a poor, lean man among the rocks, 
And answer questions for him ? " 

There she stood, 
With blonde hair blowing back, as if the breeze 
Blew a light out of it, that ever played 
And hovered at her shoulders. Such blue eyes 
Mirrored the dreamy mountain distances, — 
(Yet, are the angels' faces thin and wan 
Like that ; and do they have such mouths, so drawn. 
As if a sad song, some sad time, had died 
Upon the lips, and left its echo there ?) 

And the man rose, and stood with folded hands 
And head bent, and his downcast looks in awe 
Touching her garment's hem, that, when she spoke. 
Trembled a little where it met her feet. 

" I am come, because you called to me to come. 
What were all other voices when I heard 
The voice of my own soul's soul call to me ? 
You knew I loved you — oh, you must have known ! 
Was it a noble thing to do, you think, 
To leave a lonely girl to die down there 



[ 147 3 

In the great empty world, and come up here 

To make a martyr's pillar of your pride ? 

There has been nobler work done, there in the world, 

Than you have done this year ! " 

Then cried the man : 
^^ voice that I have prayed for — sad voice. 
And woeful eyes, spare me if I have sinned ! 
There was a little ring you used to wear " — 

" strange, wild Fates, that balance bliss and woe 
On such poor straws ! It was a brother's gift." 



" You never told me " — 



a 



Did you ever ask ? " 



" You, too, were surely prouder then than now ! " 

" Dear, I am sadder now : the head must bend 
A little, when one 's weeping." 

Then the man, — 
While haM his mind, bewildered, at a flash 



i: 148 2 

Took in the wide, lone place, the singing bird. 
The sunshine streaming past them like a wind. 
And the broad tree that moved as though it breathed : 
" Oh, if 't is possible that in the world 
There hes some low, mean work for me to do. 
Let me go there alone : I am ashamed 
To wear life's crown when I flung down its sword. 
Crammed full of pride, and lust, and littleness, 
God, I am not worthy of thy gifts ! 
Let me find penance, till, years hence, perchance, 
Made pure by toil, and scourged with pain and 
prayer " — 

Then a voice answered through His creature's 
lips,— 
" God asks no penance but a better life. 
He purifies by pain — He only ; 't is 
A remedy too dangerous for our 
Blind pharmacy. Lo ! we have tried that way. 
And borne what fruit, or blossoms even, save one 
Poor passion-flower ! Come, take thy happiness ; 
In happy hearts are all the sunbeams forged 
That brighten up our weatherbeaten world. 



C 149 3 

Come back with me — Come ! for I love you 
Come ! " 



If it was not a dream : perchance it was — 
Often it seems so, and I wonder when 
I shall awaken on the mountain-side, 
With a little bitter taste left in the mouth 
Of too much sleep, or too much happiness, 
And sigh, and wish that I might dream again. 



i: 150 ] 



SUNDOWN 

i 

A SEA of splendor in the West, 

Purple, and pearl, and gold. 
With milk-white ships of cloud, whose sails 

Slowly the winds unfold. 

Brown cirrus-bars, like ribbed beach-sand, 

Cross the blue upper dome ; 
And nearer flecks of feathery white 

Blow over them like foam. 

But when that transient glory dies 

Into the twilight gray. 
And leaves me on the beach alone 

Beside the glimmering bay ; 

And when I know that, late or soon, 

Love's glory finds a grave, 
And hearts that danced hke dancing foam 

Break like the breaking wave ; 



C 151 ] 

A little dreary, homeless thought 

Creeps sadly over me, 
Like the shadow of a lonely cloud 

Moving along the sea. 



i: 152 :i 



THE ARCH 

Just where the street of the village ends, 

Over the road an oak-tree tall, 
Curving in more than a crescent, bends 

With an arch like the gate of a Moorish wall. 

Over across the river there, 
""Looking under the arch, one sees 
The sunshine slant through the distant air, 
And burn on the cliff and the tufted trees. 

Each day, hurrying through the town, 

I stop an instant, early or late. 
As I cross the street, and glancing down 

I catch a glimpse through the Moorish gate. 

Only a moment there I stand. 

But I look through that loop in the dusty air, 
Into a far-off fairy land. 

Where all seems calm, and kind, and fair. 



c: 153 :i 

So sometimes at the end of a thought, 

Where with a vexing doubt we 've striven, 

A sudden, sunny glimpse is caught 

Of an open arch, and a peaceful heaven. 



I 154 ] 



APRIL IN OAKLAND 

Was there last night a snowstorm ? 

So thick the orchards stand, 
With drift on drift of blossom-flakes 

Whitening all the land. 

Or have the waves of life that swelled 
The green buds, day by day, 

Broken at once in clinging foam 
And scattered odor-spray ? 

The winds come drowsy with the breath 

Of cherry and of pear. 
Sighing their perfume-laden wings 

No more of sweet can bear. 

Over the garden-gateway 
That parts the tufted hedge. 

Rimming the idly twinkling bay 
Sleeps the blue mountains' edge. 



C 155 ] 

Yon fleece of clouds in heaven. 

So delicate and fair, 
Seems a whole league of orchard-bloom 

SaiHng along the air. 

Oh, lovehness of nature ! 

Oh, sordid minds of men ! 
Without, a world of bloom and balm — 

A sour, sad soul within. 

winds that sweep the orchard 

With Orient spices sweet. 
Why bring ye with that desolate sound 

The dead leaves to my feet ? 

Ah, sweeter were the fragrance 

That I to-day have found. 
If la3t year's crumbled leaves of love 

Were buried under ground ; 

And fairer were the shadowed troops 

That fleck the distant hill, 
If shades of clouds that will not pass 

Dimmed not my memory still. 



i: 156 :\ 

Better than all the beauty 

Which cloud or blossom shows 

Is the blue sky that arches all 
With measureless repose. 

And better than the bright blue sky, 

To know that far away 
Sweep all the silent host of stars 

Behind the veil of day. 

And best to feel that there and here, 

About us and above, 
Move on the purposes of God 

In justice and in love. 



i; 157 :] 



STARLIGHT 

They think me daft, who nightly meet 
My face turned starward, while my feet 
Stumble along the unseen street ; 

But should man's thoughts have only room 
For Earth, his cradle and his tomb, 
Not for his Temple's grander gloom ? 

And must the prisoner all his days 
Learn but his dungeon's narrow ways 
And never through its grating gaze ? 

Then let me linger in your sight, 

My only amaranths ! blossoming bright 

As over Eden's cloudless night. 

The same vast belt, and square, and crown, 
That on the Deluge glittered down. 
And lit the roofs of Bethlehem town ! 



C 158 : 

Ye make me one with all my race, 
A \actor over time and space, 
Till all the path of men I pace. 

Far-speeding backward in my brain 
We build the Pyramids again, 
And Babel rises from the plain ; 

x\nd climbing upward on your beams 
I peer within the Patriarchs' dreams. 
Till the deep sky with angels teems. 

My Comforters ! — Yea, why not mine ? 
The power that kindled you doth shine. 
In man, a mastery divine ; 

That Love which throbs in every star. 
And quickens all the worlds afar. 
Beats warmer where his children are. 

The shadow of the wings of Death 
Broods over us ; we feel his breath : 
" Resurgam " still the spirit saith. 



These tired feet, this weary brain, 
Blotted with many a mortal stain. 
May crumble earthward — not in vain. 

With swifter feet that shall not tire, 
Eyes that shall fail not at your fire, 
Nearer your splendors I aspire. 



i: i6o ] 



A DEAD BIRD IN WINTER 

The cold, hard sky and hidden sun, 
The stiffened trees that shiver so. 

With bare twigs naked every one 

To these harsh winds that freeze the snow,- 

It was a bitter place to die, 

Poor birdie ! Was it easier, then. 

On such a world to shut thine eye. 
And sleep away from life, than when 

The apple-blossoms tint the air, 
And, twittering in the sunny trees. 

Thy fellow-songsters flit and pair. 

Breasting the warm, caressing breeze ? 

Nay, it were easiest, I feel, 

Though 't were a brighter Earth to lose, 
To let the summer shadows steal 

About thee, bringing their repose ; 



I 161 ] 

When the noon hush was on the air, 

And on the flowers the warm sun shined, 

And Earth seemed all so sweet and fair, 
That He who made it must be kind. 

So I, too, could not bear to go 

From Life in this unfriendly clime, 

To lie beneath the crusted snow. 

When the dead grass stands stiff with rime -, 

But under those blue skies of home, 

Far easier were it to lie down 
Where the perpetual violets bloom 

And the rich moss grows never brown ; 

Where linnets never cease to build 

Their nests, in boughs that always wave 

To odorous airs, with blessing filled 

From nestled blossoms round my grave. 



[ 162 ] 



SPRING TWILIGHT 

Singing in the rain, robin ? 

Rippling out so fast 
All thy flute-like notes, as if 

This singing were thy last ! 

After sundown, too, robin ? 

Though the fields are dim. 
And the trees grow dark and still, 

Dripping from leaf and limb. 

'T is heart-broken music — 
That sweet, faltering strain, — . 

Like a mingled memory, 
Half ecstasy, half pain. 

Surely thus to sing, robin. 
Thou must have in sight 

Beautiful skies behind the shower. 
And dawn beyond the night. 



I 163 ] 

Would thy faith were mine, robin ! 

Then, though night were long, 
All its silent hours should melt 

Their sorrow into song. 



c; 164 2 



EVENING 

The Sun is gone : those glorious chariot-wheels 
Have sunk their broadening spokes of flame, and left 
Thin rosy films wimpled across the West, 
Whose last faint tints melt slowly in the blue, 
As the last trembling cadence of a song 
Fades into silence sweeter than all sound. 

Now the first stars begin to tremble forth 
Like the first instruments of an orchestra 
Touched softly, one by one. — There in the East 
Kindles the glory of moonrise : how its waves 
Break in a surf of silver on the clouds ! — 
White, motionless clouds, like soft and snowy wings 
Which the great Earth spreads, sailing round the 
Sun. 

silent stars ! that over ages past 
Have shone serenely as ye shine to-night. 
Unseal, unseal the secret that ye keep ! 
Is it not time to tell us why we live ? 



i: 165 n 

Through all these shadowy corridors of years, 
(Like some gray Priest, who through the Mysteries 
Led the blindfolded Neophyte in fear,) 
Time leads us blindly onward, till in wrath 
Tired Life would seize and throttle its stern guide. 
And force him tell us whither and how long. 
But Time gives back no answer — only points 
With motionless finger to eternity. 
Which deepens over us, as that deep sky 
Darkens above me : only its vestibule 
Glimmers with scattered stars; and down the West 
A silent meteor slowly slides afar. 
As though, pacing the garden-walks of heaven. 
Some musing seraph had let fall a flower. 



I 166 ;] 



THE ORGAN 

It is no harmony of human making, 

Though men have built those pipes of burnished 
gold ; 
Their music, out of Nature's heart awaking, 

Forever new, forever is of old. 

Man makes not — only finds — all earthly beauty. 
Catching a thread of sunshine here and there. 

Some shining pebble in the path of duty. 
Some echo of the songs that flood the air. 

I 

That prelude is a wind among the willows. 
Rising until it meets the torrent's roar ; 

Now a wild ocean, beating his great billows 
Among the hollow caverns of the shore. 

It is the voice of some vast people, pleading 

For justice from an ancient shame and wrong, — 

The tramp of God's avenging armies, treading 
With shouted thunders of triumphant song. 



i 167 -2 

soul, that sittest chanting dreary dirges, 
Couldest thou but rise on some divine desire, 

As those deep chords upon their swelling surges 
Bear up the wavering voices of the choir ! 

But ever lurking in the heart, there lingers 
The trouble of a false and jarring tone, 

As some great Organ which unskillful fingers 
Vex into discords when the Master 's gone. 



I 168 J 



EASTERN WINTER 

Cold — cold — the very sun looks cold, 
With those thin rays of chilly gold 
Laid on that gap of bluish sky 
That glazes like a dying eye. 

The naked trees are shivering, 
Each cramped and bare branch quivering, 
Cutting the bleak wind into blades. 
Whose edge to brain and bone iijvades. 

That hard ground seems to ache, all day, 

Even for a sheet of snow, to lay 

Upon its icy feet and knees, 

Stretched stiffly there to freeze and freeze. 

And yon shrunk mortal — what 's within 
That nipped and winter-shriveled skin ? 
The pinched face drawn in peevish lines. 
The voice that through his blue lips whineS;, — 



The frost has got within, you see, — 
Left but a selfish me and me : 
The heart is chilled, its nerves are numb. 
And love has long been frozen dumb. 

Ah, give me back the cHme I know, 
Where all the year geraniums blow, 
And hyacinth-buds bloom white for snow ; 

Where hearts beat warm with life's dehght, 
Through radiant winter's sunshine bright, 
And summer's starry deeps of night ; 

Where man may let earth's beauty thaw 
The wintry creed which Calvin saw, 
That God is only Power and Law ; 

And out of Nature's Bible prove. 

That here below as there above 

Our Maker — Father — God — is Love. 



[ 170 ] 



SLEEPING 

Hushed within her quiet bed 
She is lying all the night, 
In her pallid robes of white, 
Eyelids on the pure eyes pressed, 
Soft hands folded on the breast, — 

And you thought I meant it — dead ? 

Nay ! I smile at your shocked face : 
In the morning she will wake. 
Turn her dreams to sport, and make 
All the household glad and gay, 
Yet for many a merry day. 

With her beauty and her grace. 

But some summer 't will be said, — 
" She is lying all the night. 
In her pallid robes of white. 
Eyelids on the tired eyes pressed. 
Hands that cross upon the breast : " 

We shaU understand it — dead ! 



[ 171 2 

Yet 't will only be a sleep : 

When, with songs and dewy light, 
Morning blossoms out of Night, 
She will open her blue eyes 
'Neath the palms of Paradise, 

While we foolish ones shall weep. 



C 172 ] 



A PRATER 

God, our Father, if we had but truth ! 

Lost truth — which thou perchance 
Didst let man lose, lest all his wayward youth 

He waste in song and dance ; 
That he might gain, in searching, mightier powers 
For manlier use in those foreshadowed hours. 

If, blindly groping, he shall oft mistake, 

And follow twinkling motes 
Thinking them stars, and the one voice forsake 

Of Wisdom for the notes 
Which mocking Beauty utters here and there, 
Thou surely wilt forgive him, and forbear ! 

Oh, love us, for we love thee. Maker — God ! 

And would creep near thy hand, 
And call thee " Father, Father," from the sod 

Where by our graves we stand. 
And pray to touch, fearless of scorn or blame. 
Thy garment's hem, which Truth and Good we name. 



I 173 ] 



THE POLAR SEA 

At the North, far away, 
Rolls a great sea for aye, 
Silently, awfully. 
Round it on every hand 
Ice-towers majestic stand, 
Guarding this silent sea 
Grimly, invincibly. 
Never there man hath been, 
Who hath come back again. 
Telling to ears of men 
What is this sea within. 
Under the starhght, 
RippHng the moonlight. 
Drinking the sunlight, 
Desolate, never heard nor seen. 
Beating forever it hath been. 

From our life far away 
Roll the dark waves, for aye. 
Of an Eternity, 



I 174 ] 

Silently, awfully. 
Round it on every hand 
Death's icy barriers stand, 
Guarding this silent sea 
Grimly, invincibly. 
Never there man hath been 
Who could return again, * 
Telling to mortal ken 
What is within the sea 
Of that Eternity. 

Terrible is our life — 

In its whole blood-written history 

Only a feverish strife ; 

In its beginning, a mystery — 

In its wild ending, an agony. 

Terrible is our death — 

Black-hanging cloud over Life's setting sun. 

Darkness of night when the daylight is done. 

In the shadow of that cloud. 

Deep within that darkness' shroud. 

Rolls the ever-throbbing sea ; 

And we — all we — 



C 175 ] 

Are drifting rapidly 
And floating silently 
Into that unknown sea 
Into Eternity. 



C 176 3 



THE FUTURE 

What may we take into the vast forever? 

That marble door 
Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor, 

No fame-wreathed crown we wore, 

No garnered lore. 

What can we bear beyond the unknown portal ? 

No gold, no gains 
Of all our toiling : in the life immortal 

No hoarded wealth remains. 

Nor gilds, nor stains. 

Naked from out that far abyss behind us 

We entered here : 
No word came with our coming, to remind us 

What wondrous world was near, 

No hope, no fear. 

Into the silent, starless Night before usf 
Naked we glide : 



I 



i: 177 :] 

No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us, 
No comrade at our side, 
No chart, no guide. 

Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow^ 

Our footsteps fare : 
The beckoning of a Father's hand we follow — 

His love alone is there, 

No curse, no care. 



C 178 ;] 



A DAILY MIRACLE 

June's sunshine on the broad porch shines 
Through tangled curtains of crossing vines ; 
The restless dancing of the leaves 
Dusky webs of shadow weaves, 
. That wander on the oaken floor, 
Or cross the threshold of the door. 
Scattered where'er their mazes run 
Lie little phantoms of the sun : 
Whatever chink the sunbeam found, 
Crooked or narrow, on the ground 
The shadowy image still is round. 

So the image of God in the heart of a man, 
Which truth makes, rifting as it can 
Through the narrow crooked ways 
Of our restless deeds and days. 
Still is His image — bright or dim — 
And scorning it is scorning Him. 



1 179 n 



THE NORTH WIND 

All night, beneath the flashing hosts of stars, 
The North poured forth the passion of its soul 
In mighty longings for the tawny South, 
Sleeping afar among her orange-blooms. 
All night, through the deep canon's organ-pipes. 
Swept down the grand orchestral harmonies 
Tumultuous, till the hills' rock buttresses 
Trembled in unison. 

The sun has risen, 
But still the storming sea of air beats on. 
And o'er the broad green slopes a flood of light 
Comes streaming through the heavens like a wind. 
Till every leaf and twig becomes a lyre 
And thrills with vibrant splendor. 

Down the bay 
The furrowed blue, save that 't is starred with foam, 
Is bare and empty as the sky of clouds ; 
For all the little sails, that yesterday 



C 18° 1 

Flocked past the islands, now have furled their wings, 
And huddled frightened at the wharves — just as, 
A moment since, a flock of twittering birds 
Whirled through the almond-trees like scattered 

leaves. 
And hid beyond the hedge. 

How the old oaks 
Stand stiffly to it, and wrestle with the storm ! 
While the tall eucalyptus' plumy tops 
Tumble and toss and stream with quivering light. 
Hark ! when it lulls a moment at the ear, 
The fir-trees sing their sea-song : — now again 
The roar is all about us like a flood ; 
And like a flood the fierce light shines, and burns 
Away all distance, till the far blue ridge. 
That rims the ocean, rises close at hand. 
And high, Prometheus-like, great Tamalpais 
Lifts proudly his grand front, and bears his scar. 
Heaven's scath of wrath, defiant like a god. 

I thank thee, glorious wind ! Thou bringest me 
Something that breathes of mountain crags and 
pines, 



Yea, more — from the unsullied, farthest North, 
Where crashing icebergs jar like thunder-shocks, 
And midnight splendors wave and fade and flame, 
Thou bring'st a keen, fierce joy. So wilt thou help 
The soul to rise in strength, as some great wave 
Leaps forth, and shouts, and hf ts the ocean-foam, 
And rides exultant round the shining world. 



[ 182 ] 



CALIFORNIA WINTER 

This is not winter : where is the crisp air, 
And snow upon the roof, and frozen ponds, 
And the star-fire that tips the icicle ? 



Here blooms the late rose, pale and odorless ; 
And the vague fragrance in the garden walks 
Is but a doubtful dream of mignonette. 
In some smooth spot, under a sleeping oak 
That has not dreamed of such a thing as spring. 
The ground has stolen a kiss from the cool sun 
And thrilled a little, and the tender grass 
Has sprung untimely, for these great bright days. 
Staring upon it, will not let it live. 
The sky is blue, and 't is a goodly time. 
And the round, barren hillsides tempt the feet ; 
But 't is not winter : such as seems to man 
What June is to the roses, sending floods 
Of life and color through the tingling veins. 



It is a land without a fireside. Far 
Is the old home, where, even this very night, 
Roars the great chimney with its glorious fire, 
And old friends look into each other's eyes 
Quietly, for each knows the other's trust. 

Heaven is not far away such winter nights : 
The big white stars are sparkling in the east. 
And gHtter in the gaze of solemn eyes ; 
For many things have faded with the flowers. 
And many things their resurrection wait ; 
Earth like a sepulchre is sealed with frost. 
And Morn and Even beside the silent door 
Sit watching, and their soft and folded wings 
Are white with feathery snow. 

Yet even here 
We are not quite forgotten by the Hours, 
Could human eyes but see the beautiful 
Save through the glamour of a memory. 
Soon comes the strong south wind, and shouts aloud 
Its jubilant anthem. Soon the singing rain 
Comes from warm seas, and in its skyey tent 
Enwraps the drowsy world. And when, some night. 



i: 184 :i 



Its flowing folds invisibly withdraw, 
Lo ! the new life in all created things. 
The azure mountains and the ocean gates 
Against the lovely sky stand clean and clear 
As a new purpose in the wiser soul. 



I 



i: 185 ] 



INFLUENCES 

From the scarlet sea of sunset, 

Tossing up its waves of fire 
To a floating spray of splendor, 

Kindles through me mad desire 

Now — now — now to call her mine ! 

From the ashen gray of twihght 
Musings dark as shadows linger — 

Slowly creeping, leave me weeping — 
While in silence round my finger 
That long glossy lock I twine. 

From the holy hush of starHght 
Sinks a peace upon my spirit. 
And a voice of hope and patience — 



All the quiet night I hear it — 

Whispers, " Wait, for she is thine ! 



jj 



L 186 -} 



THE LOVER'S SONG 

Lend me thy fillet, Love ! 

I would no longer see ; 
Cover mine eyelids close awhile, 

And make me blind like thee. 

Then might I pass her sunny face, 

And know not it was fair ; 
Then might I hear her voice, nor guess 

Her starry eyes were there. 

Ah ! banished so from stars and sun — 

Why need it be my fate? 
If only she might deem me good 

And wise, and be my mate ! 



Lend her thy fillet. Love ! 

Let her no longer see : 
If there is hope for me at all, 

She must be blind like thee. 



[ 187 ] 



A TROPICAL MORNING AT SEA 

Sky in its lucent splendor lifted 

Higher than cloud can be ; 
Air with no breath of earth to stain it, 

Pure on the perfect sea. 

Crests that touch and tilt each other, 

Jostling as they comb ; 
Delicate crash of tinkling water, 

Broken in pearling foam. 

Flashings — or is it the pine wood's whispers, 

Babble of brooks unseen. 
Laughter of winds when they find the blossoms, 

Brushing aside the green ? 

Waves that dip, and dash, and sparkle; 

Foam-wreaths slipping by. 
Soft as a snow of broken roses 

Afloat over mirrored sky. 



[ 188 ] 

Off to the East tli? steady sun-track 

Golden meshes fill — 
Webs of fire, that lace and tangle, 

Never a moment still. 

Liquid palms but clap together, 
Fountains, flowei*-like, grow — 

Limpid bells on stems of silver — 
Out of a slope of snow. 

Sea-depths, blue as the blue of violets — 

Blue as a summer sky. 
When you blink at its arch sprung over 

Where in the grass you He. 

Dimly an orange bit of rainbow 
Burns where the low west clears, 

Broken in air, like a passionate promise 
Born of a moment's tears. 

Thinned to amber, rimmed with silver. 
Clouds in the distance dwell, 

Clouds that are cool, for all their color, 
Pure as a rose-lipped shell. 



Fleets of wool in the upper heavens 

Gossamer wings unfurl ; 
Sailing so high they seem but sleeping 

Over yon bar of pearl. 

What would the great world lose, I wonder- 

Would it be missed or no — 
If we stayed in the opal morning, 

Floating forever so? 

Swung to sleep by the swaying water, 

Only to dream all day — 
Blow, salt wind from the north upstarting, 

Scatter such dreams away ! 



t 190 2 



A FOOLISH WISH 

Why need I seek some burden small to bear 

Before I go ? 
Will not a host of nobler souls be here, 

Heaven's will to do ? 
Of stronger hands, unfaihng, unafraid? 

silly soul ! what matters my small aid 

Before I go ! 

1 tried to find, that I might show to them, 

Before I go, 
The path of purer lives : the light was dim, — 

I do not know 
If I had found some footprints of the way ; 
It is too late their wandering feet to stay. 

Before I go. 

I would have sung the rest some song of cheer, 

Before I go ; 
But still the chords rang false ; some jar of fear, 

Some jangling woe. 



i 191 ] 

And at the end I cannot weave one chord 
To float into their hearts my last warm word, 
Before I go. 

I would be satisfied if I might tell, 

Before I go, 
That one warm word, — how I have loved them well, 

Could they but know ! 
And would have gained for them some gleam of good ; 
Have sought it long ; still seek, — if but I could ! 

Before I go. 

'T is a child's longing, on the beach at play : 

"Before I go," 
He begs the beckoning mother, " Let me stay 

One shell to throw ! " 
T is coming night; the great sea climbs the shore, — 
" Ah, let me toss one little pebble more. 

Before I go ! " 



[ 192 ] 



EVERYDAY LIFE 

The marble-sniitb, at his morning task 
Merrily glasses the blue-veined stone, 

With stout hands circling smooth. You ask, 
" What will it be, when it is done ? " 

" A shaft for a young girl's grave." Both hands 
Go back with a will to their sinewy play ; 
And he sings like a bird, as he swaying stands, 
A rollicking stave of Love and May. 



C 1&3 2 



BEFORE SUNRISE IN WINTER 

A PURPLE cloud hangs half way down ; 

Sky, yellow gold below ; 
The naked trees, beyond the town. 

Like masts against it show — 

Bare masts and spars of our eai-th-ship, 
With shining snow-sails furled ; 

And through the sea of space we slip, 
That flows all round the world. 



C 194 ] 



THE CHOICE 

Only so much of power each day — 

So much nerve-force brought in play ; 

If it goes for poHtics or trade, 

Ends gained or money made, 

You have it not for the soul and God — 

The choice is yours, to soar or plod. 

So much water in the rill : 

It may go to turn the miller's wheel, 

Or sink in the desert, or flow on free 
To brighten its banks in meadows green, 
Till broadening out, fair fields between. 

It streams to the moon-enchanted sea. 
Only so Httle power each day : 
Week by week days slide away ; 

Ere the life goes, what shall it be — 
A trade — a game — a mockery, 
Or the gate of a rich Eternity? 



c ^95 :] 



SIBYLLINE BARTERING 

Fate, the gray Sibyl, with kind eyes above 

Closely locked lips, brought youth a merry crew 

Of proffered friends ; the price, self -slaying love. 
Proud youth repulsed them. She and they with- 
drew. 

Then she brought half the troop ; the cost, the 
same. 

My man's heart wavered : should I take the few, 
And pay the whole ? But while I went and came, 

Fate had decided. She and they withdrew. 

Once more she came, with two. Now life's midday 

Left fewer hours before me. Lonelier grew 
The house and heart. But should the late purse 

pay 

The earlier price ? And she and they withdrew. 

At last I saw Age his forerunners send. 
Then came the Sibyl, still with kindly eyes 



C 196 ;] 

And close-locked lips, and offered me one friend, — 
Thee, my one darling ! With what tears and cries 

I claimed and claim thee ; ready now to pay 
The perfect love that leaves no self to slay ! 



[ 197 ] 



MUSIC 

The little rim of moon hangs low — the room 
Is saintly with the presence of Night, 
And Silence broods with knitted brows around. 
The woven lilies of the velvet floor 
Blend with the roses in the dusky light. 
Which shows twin pictures glimmering from the 

walls : 
Here, a mailed group kneels by the rocky sea — 
There, a gray desert, and a well, and palms ; 
While the faint perfume of a violet, 
Vague as a dream of Spring, pervades the air. 
Where the moon gleams along the organ-front. 
The crooked shadow of a dead branch stirs 
Like ghostly fingers gHding through a tune. 
Now rises one with faintly rustUng robes, 
And white hands search among the glistening keys. 
Out of the silence sounds are forming — tones 
That seem to come from infinite distances, - — 
Soft trebles fluttering down like sno\fy doves 
Just dipping their swift wings in the deep bass 



C 198 ;] 

That crumbles downward like a crumbling wave ; 

And out of those low-gathering harmonies 

A voice arises, tangled in their maze, 

Then soaring up exultantly alone, 

While the accompaniment wails and complains. 

— I am upon the seashore. 'T is the sound 
Of ocean, surging on against the land. 
That throbbing thunder is the roar of surf 
Beaten and broken on the frothy rocks. 
Those whispering trebles are the plashing waves 
That ripple up the smooth sand's slope, and kiss 
The tinkhng shells with coy Hps, quick withdrawn ; 
And over all, the solitary voice ^ 

Is the wind wandering on its endless quest. 

— A change comes, in a crash of minor chords. 
I am a dreamer, waking from his dream 

Into the life to which our life is sleep. 

My soul is floating — floating, till afar 

The round Earth rolls, with fleece of moonlit cloud, 

A globe of amber, gleaming as it goes. 

Deep in some hollow cavern of the sky 

All human life is pleading to its God. 

Still the accompaniment wails and complains ; — 

A wild confusion of entangled chords. 



C 199 ] 

Revenge, and fear, and strong men's agony, 
The shrill cry of despair, the slow, deep swell 
Of Time's long effort, sinking but to swell, 
While woman's lonely love, and childhood's faith 
Go wandering with soft whispers hand in hand. 
Suddenly from the ages one pure soul 
Is singled out to plead before the Throne ; 
And then again the solitary voice 
Peals up among the stars from the great throng. 
Catching from out the storm all love, all hope, 
All loveliness of life, and utlers it. 

Then the hushed music sobs itself to sleep. 
And all is still, — save the reluctant sigh 
That tells the wakening from immortal dreams. 



c; 200 ^ 



THREE SONGS 

Sing me, thon Singer, a song of gold ! 

Said a careworn man to me : 
So I sang of the golden summer days, 
And the sad, sweet autumn's yellow haze, 
Till his heart grew soft, and his mellowed gaze 

Was a kindly sight to see. 

Sing me, dear Singer, a song of love ! 

A fair girl asked of me : ^ 
Then I sang of a love that clasps the Race, 
Gives all, asks naught — till her kindled face 
Was radiant with the starry grace 

Of blessed Charity. 

Sing me, O Singer, a song of Hf e ! 

Cried an eager youth to me : 
And I sang of the life without alloy. 
Beyond our years, till the heart of the boy 
Caught the golden beauty, and love, and joy 

Of the great Eternity. 



I 201 2 



DESPAIR AND HOPE 

We sailed a cruise on a summer sea — 

I, and a skull for company : 

I in the stern our course to turn, 

And it on the prow to grin at me. 

Over the deep heaven, hung below. 

Whose imaged clouds lay white like snow, 

Glided we, as the tide might be, 

Slipping swiftly, floating slow. 
Past the woods all Hving green — 

Save by the marge some fading tree, 
Whose leaf, so early autumn-touched. 

Would make the skull to grin at me. 

Past a grove of fragrant pine, 
From whose dusky depths of shade 
Snowy shaft and colonnade 

Marked a ruined altar-shrine ; — 

And the skull's grim face grinned into mine. 



Under the arch of a vine-clasped elm 

Leaning off from the mossy land, 
Across the shallow the idle helm 

Lightly furrowed the silver sand : 
Down the slope all clover-sweet 

Danced a group in childish glee — 
Hissed a swift snake at their feet ; — 

Then the skull grinned unto me. 

Into a cavern dim and dank 

Crept we on the creeping tide ; 
Shapeless creatures rose and sank, 

Dripped with damp the ceilipg wide. 
Darker, chiller hung the air ; 

Scarcely I the prow could see ; 
But I, through the shadow there, 

Felt the skull still grin at me. 

Out of the cavern's thither side. 
Into a mellow, morn-like glow. 

Streams the ripple-curving tide ; 
Sounds of music sweeter grow ; 

Odorous incense, softened air, 

Melodies so faint and fair. 



Thrill me through with life and love 
And all suddenly from the prow, 
Where had seemed the skull just now, 

Flutters to my breast a dove. 



C 204 2 



WISDOM AND FAME 

A WILDERNESS, made awful with the night — 
Great glimmering trunks whose tops were hid in 

gloom, 
Vast columns in the blackness broken off, 
Between whose ghostly forms, slow-wandering, 
A company of lost men sought a path. 

Some groped among the dead leaves and fallen 
boughs ^ 

For footprints ; but the rattle of the leaves 
And crook of stems seemed serpents coiled to strike. 

Some took the momentary sparks that rode 
Upon their straining eyeballs, for far lights, 
And followed them. 

Some stood apart, in vain 
Searching, with horror-widened eyes, for stars. 

So, stumbling on, they circled round and round 
Through the same mazes. 

Then they singled one 
To climb a pinnacled height, and see from thence 



The landmarks, and to shout from thence their course. 
With aching sinews, bleeding feet, bruised hands. 
He gained the height ; but whon they cried to him 
They got but maudlin answers, — he had found. 
Slaking hot thirst, a fruit that maddened him. 

Another, and another still they sent ; 
But every one that climbed found the ill fruit 
And maddened, and gave back but wild replies : 
And still in darkness they go wandering, lost. 



I 206 ] 



SERETsITT 

Brook, 

Be still, — be still ! 
Midnight's arch is broken 
In thy ceaseless ripples. 
Dark and cold below them 
Runs the troubled water, — 
Only on its bosom, 
Shimmering and trembling, 
Doth the glinted stai-shiije 

Sparkle and cease. 

Life, 

Be still, — be still ! 
Boimdless truth is shattered 
On thy hurrying current. 
Rest, with face uplifted. 
Calm, serenely quiet ; 
Drink the deathless beauty — 
Thrills of love and wonder 
Sinking, shining, star-like ; 



[ 207 ] 

Till the mirrored heaven 
Hollow down within thee 
Holy deeps unfathomed, 
Where far thoughts go floating, 
And low voices wander 

Whispering peace. 



c 208 :] 



THE RUBY HEART 



A CHILD S STORY 

Under a fragrant blossom-bell 
A tiny Fairy once did dwell. 
The moss was bright about her feet, 
Her little face was fair and sweet, 
Her form in rainbow hues was clad, 
And yet the Fairy's soul was sad ; 
For, of the Elves that round h,er moved. 
And in the yellow moonlight roved. 
There was no Spirit that she loved. 

Many a one there was, I ween. 
Among the sprites that danced the green. 
Whose hands were warm to clasp her own, 
And voices kindly in their tone ; 
But love the fondest and the best 
Awaked no answer in her breast : 
Her heart unmoved within her slept — 
And, " I can never love ! " she wept. 



C 209 ] 

She taught herself a quaint old song 
And crooned it over all day long ; 

^^ Heprayeth best, who loveth best 
All things both great and small; 
For the dear God who loveth us^ 
He made and loveth all'' 

" But I/' she said, " can never pray, 
Nor to His mansions find the way, 
For he will suffer not, I know, 
A creature unto Him to go 
Who has not loved His world below." 

Slow-wandering by the brook alone. 
She chose a pure white pebble-stone. 
And carved it, sitting there apart. 
Into a little marble heart ; 
She hung it by her mossy bed — 
" My heart will never love," she said, 
" Till this white stone turn ruby-red." 

One night a moonbeam smote her face 
And wakened her, and in its place 



There stood an angel, full of grace. 
"Dear child/' he said, " from far above 
I come to teach thee how to love. 
Do every day some little deed 
Of kindness, some faint creature feed. 
Make some hurt spirit cease to bleed, 
Then carve the record fair, at night. 
Upon thy heart of marble white. 
Each word shall turn to ruby-red. 
And so much of thy task be sped ; — 
For when the whole is ruddied o'er, 
Thy bosom shall be cold no more ; 
The souls thy careless thougl^s contemn 
Shall win thee by thy deeds to them J' 

Upon the sorrowful Fairy broke 
Like sudden sunshine this new hope. 
Each day to some one's door she took 
A kindly act, or word, or look. 
Whose record, fairly carved at night. 
Blushed out upon the stony white ; 
Till, somehow, wondrously there grew 
More grace in every one she knew — 
Each little ugliness concealed, 



Each goodness more and more reveal' d, — 
As, when you watch the twilight through, 
The sky seems one pure empty blue, 
Till, o'er the paling sunset-bars, 
Suddenly 't is one sweep of stars ! 

So day by day she found herself 
Grow kindlier to each little elf ; 
Yea, even to the birds and bees. 
And slender flowerets round her knees : 
The very moss-buds at her feet 
She came with warmer smile to greet, 
Till now, at last, her marble heart 
Was ruddy, save one little part 
That gleamed all snowy as of old 
In the still moonbeams, white and cold. 

Her task was almost done — she knelt 
And hid her glad wet eyes, and felt 
Her soul's first prayer steal up to God, 
Like Spring's first violet from the sod. 
Through all her being softly stole 
Such joy of gratitude, her soul 
Brimmed over like a brinmiing cup — 



C 212 ] 

And then a voice said, " Child, look up ! " 

And lo ! the stone above her head 

Was a pure ruby, starry-red ; 

And down among the flowers there flew, 

Brushing aside the moonlit dew, 

A little snowy elfin dove. 

And nestled on her breast, to prove 

Sweet trust in one whose heart was love. 



C 213 2 



TO CHILD ANNA 

As in the Spring, ere any flowers have come, 

A vague and blossomy smell 
Pervades the woods, all odors mixed in one, 
As if to tell 

That they are mustering in each sunny dell. 

So round your childish form there seems to cling 

A sense of nameless grace, 
A sweet confusion — budding hints of Spring 
Just giving place 

To graver woman-shadows in your face. 

I see no longer the mere child you are — 

The woman you might be 
Stands in your place, with eyes that gaze afar : 
Her face I see. 

And it is very beautiful to me. 

The little soft white hands you lay in mine 
I touch with reverent care ; 



C 214 '2 

I see them wrinkled into many a line, 
But fair — more fair 
For every weary deed they do and bear. 

The fresh young mouth, all careless purity, 

Has faded from my gaze, 
And all the tender looks, which charity 
And many patient days 

Leave round the lips, seem now to take its place. 



Therefore I stroke so tenderly your head. 

Or watch your steps afar. 
Praying that God His love on you will shed — 
More faithful far 

Than our blind human love and watching are. 



[ 215 ] 



THE WORLD'S SECRET 

I KNOW the splendor of the Sun, 

And beauty in the leaves, and moss, and grass ; 
I love the birds' small voices every one, 

And all the hours have kindness as they pass ; 

But still the heart can apprehend 

A deeper purport than the brain may know : 
I see it at the dying daylight's end. 

And hear it when the winds begin to blow. 

It strives to speak from all the world. 

Out of dumb earth, and moaning ocean-tides ; 

And brooding Night, beneath her pinions furled, 
Some message writ in starry cipher hides. 

Must I go seeking everywhere 

The meanings that behind our objects be — 
A depth serener in the azure air, 

A something more than peace upon the sea ? 



Not one least deed one soul to bless ? 

Unto the stern-eyed Future shall I bear 
Only the sense of pain without redress, 

Self-sickness, and a dull and stale despair? 

Nay, let me shape, in patience slow, 

My years, like the holy child his bird of clay, 

Till suddenly the clod its Master know, 

And thrill with hfe, and soar with songs away. 



C 217 3 



THE FOUNTAIN 

Were it not horrible — 

After all the dreams we dream, 

Our yearnings and our prayers, 

If this "I" were but a stream 

Of thoughts, sensations, joys, and pains, 

Which being clogged, no soul remains ? 

Even as the fountain seems to be 

A shape of one identity. 

But only is a stream of drops. 

And when the swift succession stops, 

The fountain melts and disappears. 

Leaving no trace but scattered tears. 

Yet even here, f ooHsh heart. 

Thou wert not cheated of thy part ; 

Were it not better, even here. 

To keep thy current pure and clear. 

With pearly drops of dew to wet 

The amaranth and violet. 

And round thy crystal feet to shower 



i: 218 J 

Blessings and beauty every hour — 
Better than in a sullen flow 
To creep around the ground, and go 
Wasting and sinking through the sand. 
Because not always thus to stand ? 



C 219 ] 



DISCONTENT 

Oh that one could arise and flee 

Unto blue-eyed Italy, 

Far from mechanical clank and hum ! 

There to sit by the sighing sea, 

And to dream of the days that shall be — shall be — 

And the glory of years to come : 

Or on some far ocean-isle, 

Under the palm and the cocoa-tree, 

To build of the coral boughs a home ; 

Or floating and falling down the Nile, 

To drown one's cares in the deeps of Time 

And the desert's brooding mystery. 

Yet howsoever we plot or plan. 

In every age — through every clime — 

Still the littleness of man 

Would follow us, fast as we might flee ; 

And the wrangling world break in on whatever is ten- 
der and sweet, 

As on a beautiful tune the rattling and noise of the 
street. 



C 220 ] 



SEEMING AND BEING 

The brave old motto, — " Seem not — only be," — 
Would it were set ablaze against the sky 
In golden letters, where the world must read ! 
What is there done for the honest doing's sake. 
In these poor times gone mad with self -parade ? 
There 's not a picture of the Cross but bears 
The painter's name as prominent as the Christ's: 
There 's not a scene, of such pecuHar grace 
That one would fain forget men's meanness there, 
But from the rocks some rascal clothier's name 
Stares in great capitals, till one could wish 
The knave hung from his signboard, for a sign : 
There 's not a graveyard in the land, but lo ! 
On the white tablets of the dead, full cut 
Below their sacred names, his shameless name 
Who carved the marble ! 

Is it not pitiful ? 
We are all actors, and all audience. 
Yea, such a dreary farce we make our lives, 



I 221 ] 

That something is expected of a man 

Upon his deathbed : " Hark ye now, good friends, 

These fine last words, this notable bravery, — see ! " 

So even the grim cross-bones of awful Death 

Must take an attitude, and the skull smirk 

For a last picture. 

Here is a nation, too, 
(God help it !) that dare scarcely act its mind. 
But walks the world's stage, quaking with the 
thought, 
^' What will great England think of me for this ? " 

The poet scoffs at fame, then sets himself, 
Full-titled, with a portrait at the front ; 
Each beautiful impatient soul, who left 
The world he scorned, still lingered near enough 
To listen, not displeased, and hear the world 
Admiringly relate how he had scorned it ; 
Even our great doubting Thomas, in young days 
When he praised silence, did it with loud speech. 
That ever too distinctly told, " 'T i« I, 
Thomas, so noisily abuse your noise ! " 



[ 222 ] 

Is it not enough for the trumpet that the god 
Has chosen it to sound his message through — 
Must the brass blare in its own petty praise ? 
And can we never do the right, and do it 
As though we were alone upon the earth, 
And the gods bHnd ? 



[ 223 ] 



WEATHER-BOUND 

Thou pitiless, false sea ! 
How, like a woman, thou wilt softly sigh 

With heaving breast where bubble- jewels shine, 
Or, beckoning, toss thy foam-white arms on high. 

And laugh with those blue sunny eyes of thine ! 

Ah, crouching, creeping sea ! 
Thou tiger-cat ! how, while the winds make pause 

To stroke thy long smooth back in quiet play. 
Thou canst unsheathe thy velvet-hidden claws 

And spring all unawares upon thy prey ! 

Thou treacherous, cruel sea ! 
How thou wilt show thy glittering smile at night, 

Hiding thy fangs, hushing thy fiendish cry, 
And rise all gentle sport from licking white 

The bones of men that underneath thee lie ! 

bitter, bitter sea ! 
Didst thou not fawn about my naked feet, 



When I stood with thee on the beach, and say 
That thou wouldst bear me swiftly home to meet 
My darlings waiting there in vain to-day ? 

Yea, thou most mighty sea ! 
Keep then that promise murmured on the shore ; 

Put thy great shoulders to our loitering keel, 
Not as in rage and wrath thou hast before — 

Let the good ship thy help gigantic feel. 

Thou answerest me, sea ! 
Lifting in silence, o'er the waters stilled. 

The shattered fragment of a rainbow fair, 
A mocking promise, ne'er to be fulfilled. 

Based on the waves and broken in mid-air. 



C 225 ;] 



TO CHILD SARA 

I LOOKED in a dew-drop's heart to-day 

As it clung on a leaf of clover. 
Holding a sparkle of starry light, 
Like a hquid drop of opal bright 
With diamond dusted over. 

In that least globe of quivering dew, 

The sunny scene around, 
Diminished to a grass-blade's width — 
Scarcely a fairy's finger-breadth — 

All imaged there I found : 

The spreading oak, the fir's soft fringe, 
The grain-field's brightening green, 
The linnet that flew fluttering by. 
And, over all, the dear blue sky. 
The bending boughs between : 

And all the night, as from its nest 
It gazes up afar. 



C 226 ] 

Its bosom holds the heavens deep. 
Whose constellations o'er it sweep, 
And mirrors every star. 

Child, is that drop of dew — your soul — 

With mirrored heaven as bright ? 
(Forgive me that I ask of you, 
Whose heart I know is pure and true 
And stainless as the light :) 

The sunshine, and the starlight too, — 

Fair hope, and faith as fair. 
Courage, and patience, silent power. 
And wisdom for each troubled hour, — 

Tell me, are they all there ? 

Your quiet grace, and kindly words 
Have influence sw eet and strong ; 
Your hand and voice can calm the brain, 
And cheer the heavy hearts of men 
With music and with song : 

Let the soul answer — can it give 
That music clear and calm — 



1 227 :] 

The rhythmic years, the holier aim, 
The scorn of pleasure, fortune, fame — 
To make our life a psalm ? 

All round the house, your birthday morn 

The budded orchards stand ; 
And we can watch from every room 
The trees all blushing into bloom — 
Blossoms on every hand : 

So may your Life be, many a year, 

A fair and goodly tree ; 
Not blossoming only, but sublime 
With fruit, so hastening the time 

When Earth shall Eden be. 



[ 228 ] 



A FABLE 

TO CHILD ANNA 

One morning, in a Prince's park, 
Before the rising of the lark 
Or the first glimmering twilight beam, 
A Lily blossomed by a stream ; 
Just at the chillest, darkest hour, 
When frowning clouds in heaven lower. 
When shadows crouch all gaunt and grim, 
And every little star is dim. ^ 

'' dreary world ! " the Lily sighed : 
Only the dreary wind replied. 

Soon, in the East uprising slow, 
A cold gray dawn began to grow. 
The Lily watched where all around 
The mist came creeping o'er the ground. 
And listened, while with sadder tone 
The morning-wind began to moan : 
But all the more the light drew on, 
Her tear-dewed cheek was deathlier wan,— 
Each streak of daylight, as it grew. 



Revealed a world so strange and new. 
Slowly the dawn crept up the sky 
Like a cold, cruel, watching eye. 
Once from some little wakened bird 
A twittering note of joy she heard : 
The chill dew fell upon her head — 
She almost wished that she were dead * 
" There comes no joy for me," she said. 

A gnarled and wisdom-wrinkled Oak 
Which overheard, in answer spoke : 

" foolish httle Lilybell, 
Why do you weep, when all is well ? 
Look up ! Have faith 1 For by and by 
The sun is coming up the sky ; 
All golden red the heavens will glow. 
All golden green the earth below ; 
The birds their rippling songs will sing, 
And wooing winds their spices bring : 
And then the Prince will hither come 
To wander 'mid his flowers, and some, 
(Ah, favored blossoms !) bending down, 
• He plucks and places in his crown. 
Look up, foolish Lilybell ! 
A little while, and all is well." 



[ 230 ] 

The Lily drooped and trembled still : 
" The dawn/' she sobbed, " is dim and chill ; 
And if the Prince should come, alas ! 
He will not stoop among the grass ; 
I surely cannot please his eyes, 
For I am neither fair nor wise : 
He '11 choose some tall and stately tree, 
He surely will not care for me ! " 

But now the sunrise was at hand. 
Lighting with splendor all the land ; 
As if a seraph stood below 
With lifted pinions all aglow. 
Whose tips of fire still nearer came 
In feathery plumes of floating flame ; ^ 

While from his hidden face the rays 
Shot up and set the heavens ablaze. 
They warmed the old Oak's wrinkled face, 
And touched it with a mellow grace ; 
Then dancing downward to his feet 
They kissed the Lily's face so sweet. 
And laughed away her foolish fear 
And lit a gem in every tear ; 
Then flew to greet the Master's eye. 
Who even now was drawing nigh. 



[ 231 3 

He saw the Lily's fragile cup 
With dew and sunlight brimming up, 
And, as he marked each beauty well, 
The petals pure as pearliest shell. 
And on the lowly bending stem 
The tear-drop sparkhng like a gem. 
The Prince was glad, and stooping down 
Plucked it, and set it in his crown ; 
And 'mid the jewels glittering there 
None shone so royally and rare. 
For none was half so pure and fair. 

Dear child, 't is our ingratitude. 
And faithless fear, and sullen mood. 
Darken a world so bright and good ! 
There 's nothing beautiful and true — 
There 's not a rift of heaven's blue. 
And not a flower, or dancing leaf. 
But shames our selfish-hearted grief. 
His hand that feels the sparrow's fall, 
And builds the bee his castle-wall. 
And spreads the tiniest insect's sail, 
And tints the violet's purple veil, 
Will never let His children stray 
Or wander from His arms away. 



[ 232 ] 

To-day may seem all cold and dim — 
Trust the To-morrow unto Him. 
'T is slander that we often hear, — 
" Hope whispers falsehoods in our ear/' 
There 's no such lying voice as Fear. 
Hope is a prophet sent from Heaven, 
Fear is a false and croaking raven. 
The dawn that buds all gray and cold 
Will blossom to a sky of gold ; 
God's love shall like a sunrise stay 
To lighten all the future way — 
Still brighter to the Perfect Day. 



n 233 ] 



THE CREATION 

A Fountain rusheth upward from God's throne ; 
Its streaming stem we name Eternal Power : 
Its tossing drops are worlds, that spin and fall, 
While on their spheres our little human lives 
Like gleams and shadows swiftly glance and go. 



I 234 ] 



THE FIRST CAUSE 

Doubtless the linnet, shut within its cage, 
Thinks the fair child that loves it, brings it seed, 
And hangs it, chirping to it, in the sun. 
Is the preserver of its little world. 

Doubtless the child, within her nursery walls. 
Thinks her kind father is the father of all 
Those happy children, chattering on the lawn — 
Keeps yonder town as well as this bright room. 
And pours the brook that sparkles past the door. 

Doubtless we think the Being who made man. 
The visible world, space powdered thick with stars, 
The golden fruit whose core is curious life. 
Created all things — love, and law, and death; 
Fate, the crowned forehead ; Will, the sceptred hand. 

Perchance — perchance : yet need it be that He 
Who planted us is the Head-gardener? What 
If beyond Him rose rank on rank, as the bulb 
Is higher than the crystals of its food, 
And he who sets it, higher than the flower. 
And he that owns the garden, more than all ? 



The great Cause works through lesser ones ; per- 
mits 
The plant to bear dead buds on dying stems ; 
The beaver to weave dams that the stream snaps ; 
The workman to make watches that lose time, 
Or organ pipes all jarred and out of tune. 
Did not I build a playhouse for my boys, 
And made it ill, and that loose plank fell down 
And hurt the children ? And did not I learn. 
After three trials, how to make it well ? 
Know we the Hmit of the power He gives 
To lesser Wills to will imperfectly ? 
Is earth that Hmit ? Is the last link man, 
Between the finite and the infinite ? 
When that new star flared out in heaven, and died, 
Who knows what Spirit, failing in his plan. 
Dashed out his work in wrath, to try anew? 

mother world ! we stammer at thy knee 
Vainly our childish questions. 'T is enough 
For such as we to know, that on His throne. 
Nearer than we can think, and farther off 
Than any mind can fathom, sits the One, 
And sees to it — though pain and evil come. 
And all may not be good — that all is well. 



c ^&e :i 



SEMELE 

What were the garden-bowers of Thebes to me? 
What cared I for their dances and their feasts, 
Whose heart awaited an immortal doom ? 
The Greek youths mocked me, since I shunned in 

scorn 
Them and their praises of my brows and hair. 
The light girls pointed after me, who turned 
Soul-sick from their unending fooleries. 
Apollo's noon-glare wrathf ully beat down 
Upon the head that would not bend to him — 
Him in his fuming anger ! — as the highest. 
In every Hly's cup a venomous thing 
Crooked up its hairy limbs ; or, if I bent 
To pluck a blue-eyed blossom in the grass. 
Some squatted horror leered with motionless eyes. 

I think the very earth did hate my feet. 
And put forth thistles to them, since I loathed 
Her bare brown bosom ; and the scowling pines 
Menaced me with dark arms, and hissed their threats 
Behind me, hurrying through their gloom, to watch 
(Blurred in unsteady tears till all their beams 



Dazzled, and shrank, and grew) that oval ring 
Of shining points that rift the Milky Way, 
Kevealing, through their gap in the dusted fire, 
The hollow awf ulness of night beyond. 



There came a change : a glory fell to me. 
No more 't was Semele, the lonely girl. 
But Jupiter's Beloved, Semele. 
With human arms the god came clasping me : 
New life streamed from his presence ; and a voice 
That scarce could curb itself to the smooth Greek 
Now and anon swept forth in those deep nights, 
Thrilling my flesh with awe ; mysterious words — 
I knew not what ; hints of unearthly things 
That I had felt on solemn summer noons, 
When sleeping earth dreamed music, and the heart 
Went crooning a low song it could not learn, 
But wandered over it, as one who gropes 
For a forgotten chord upon a lyre. 



Yea, Jupiter ! But why this mortal guise, 
Wooing as if he were a milk-faced boy? 
Did I lack lovers ? Was my beauty dulled, 



C 238 ] 

The golden hair turned dross, the hthe limbs shrunk, 
The deathless longings tamed, that I should seethe 
My soul in love like any shepherd girl ? 

One night he sware to grant whate'er I asked ; 
And straight I cried, " To know thee as thou art ! 
To hold thee on my heart as Juno does ! 
Come in thy thunder — kill me with one fierce 
Divine embrace ! Thine oath ! — Now, Earth, at 
last!" 



The heavens shot one swift sheet of lurid flame : 
The world crashed : from a body scathed and torn 
The soul leapt through, and found his breast, and died. 

^'Died?" — So the Theban maidens think, and 
laugh. 
Saying, "She had her wish, that Semele ! " 
But sitting here upon Olympus' height 
I look down, through that oval ring of stars. 
And see the far-off Earth, a twinkling speck — 
Dust-mote whirled up from the Sun's chariot-wheel — 
And pity their small hearts that hold a man 
As if he were a god ; or know the god — 
Or dare to know him — only as a man ! 
— human love, art thou forever blind ? 



C ^S9 ] 



A POET'S APOLOGY 

Truth cut on high in tablets of hewn stone, 
Or on great columns gorgeously adorned, 

Perchance were left alone, 
Passed by and scorned ; 

But Truth enchased upon a jewel rare, 

A man would keep, and next his bosom wear. 

So, many an hour, I sit and carve my gems — 
Ten spoiled, for one in purer beauty set : 

Not for kings* diadems — 
Some amulet 

That may be worn o'er hearts that toil and plod, — 

Though but one pearl that bears the name of God. 



I 240 ] 



ONE TOUCH OF NATURE 

Cruel and wild the battle : 

Great horses plunged and reared, 

And through dust-cloud and smoke-cloud. 

Blood-red with sunset's angry flush, 

You heard the gun-shots rattle, 

And, 'mid hoof-tramp and rush. 

The shrieks of women speared. 

For it was Russ and Turcoman, — 

No quarter asked or given ; 

A whirl of frenzied hate and death 

Across the desert driven. 

Look ! the half -naked horde gives way, 

Fleeing frantic without breath. 

Or hope, or will; and on behind 

The troopers storm, in blood-thirst blind, 

While, like a dreadful fountain-play, 

The swords flash up, and fall, and slay — 

Wives, grandsires, baby brows and gray, 



C 241 3 

Groan after groan, yell upon yell — 
Are men but fiends, and is earth hell ? 

Nay, for out of the flight and fear 

Spurs a Russian cuirassier ; 

In his arms a child he bears. 

Her little foot bleeds ; stern she stares 

Back at the ruin of her race. 

The small hurt creature sheds no tear. 

Nor utters cry ; but clinging still 

To this one arm that does not kiU, 

She stares back with her baby face. 

Apart, fenced round with ruined gear, 
The hurrying horseman finds a space, 
Where, with face crouched upon her knee, 
A woman cowers. You see him stoop 
And reach the child down tenderly. 
Then dash away to join his troop. 

How came one pulse of pity there — 
One heart that would not slay, but save — 
In all that Christ-forgotten sight ? 
Was there, far north by Neva's wave. 



[ 242 ] 

Some Russian girl in sleep-robes white, 
Making her peaceful evening prayer, 
That Heaven's great mercy 'neath its care 
Would keep and cover him to-night? 



C 243 ] 



THE CRICKETS IN THE FIELDS 

One, or a thousand voices? — filling noon 
With such an undersong and drowsy chant 

As sings in ears that waken from a swoon. 

And know not yet which world such murmiu's 

haunt: 
Single, then double beats, reiterant ; 

Far off and near ; one ceaseless, changeless tune. 

If bird or breeze awake the dreamy will. 
We lose the song, as it had never been ; 

Then suddenly we find 't is singing still 

And had not ceased. — So, friend of mine, within 
My thoughts one underthought, beneath the din 

Of life, doth every quiet moment fill. 

Thy voice is far, thy face is hid from me. 
But day and night are full of dreams of thee. 



[ 244 ] 



HERMIONE 



THE LOST MAGIC 

White in her snowy stone, and cold, 
With azure veins and shining arms, 

PygmaHon doth his bride behold, 

Rapt on her pure and sculptured charms. 

Ah ! in those half -divine old days 
Love still worked miracles for men ; 

The gods taught lovers wondrous ways 
To breathe a soul in marble then. 

He gazed, he yearned, he vowed, he wept. 

Some secret witchery touched her breast ; 
And, laughing April tears, she stepped 

Down to his arms and lay at rest. 

Dear artist of the storied land ! 
I too have loved a heart of stone. 



What was thy charm of voice or hand, 
Thy secret spell, Pygmalion ? 



II 



INFLUENCES 



If quiet autumn mornings would not come, 

With golden light, and haze, and harvest wain, 

And spices of the dead leaves at my feet ; 

If sunsets would not burn through cloudy and stain 

With fading rosy flush the dusky dome ; 

If the young mother would not croon that sweet 

Old sleep-song, like the robin's in the rain ; 

If the great cloud-ships would not float and drift 

Across such blue all the calm afternoon ; 

If night were not so hushed ; or if the moon 

Might pause forever by that pearly rift. 

Nor fill the garden with its flood again ; 

If the world were not what it still must be. 

Then might I live forgetting love and thee. 



[ 246 ] 



III 



THE DEAD LETTER 



The letter came at last. I carried it 
To the deep woods unopened. All the trees 
Were hushed, as if they waited what was writ, 
And feared for me. Silent they let me sit 
Among them ; leaning breathless while I read, 
And bending down above me where they stood. 
A long way off I heard the delicate tread 
Of the light-footed loiterer, the breeze, 
Come walking toward me in the leafy wood. 
I burned the page that brought me love and woe. 
At first it writhed to feel the spires of flame. 
Then lay quite still ; and o'er each word there came 
Its white ghost of the ash, and burning slow 
Each said : " You cannot kill the spirit ; know 
That we shall haunt you, even till heart and brain 
Lie as we lie in ashes — all in vain." , 



[ 247 ] 
IV 

THE SONG IN THE NIGHT 

In the deep night a little bird 
Wakens, or dreams he is awake : 

Cheerily clear one phrase is heard, 

And you almost feel the morning break. 

In the deep dark of loss and wrong, 
One face Hke a lovely dawn will thrill, 

And all night long at my heart a song 
Suddenly stirs and then is still. 



I 248 ] 



REPROOF IN LOVE 

Because we are shut out from light, 
Each of the other's look and smile ; 

Because the arms' and Hps' delight 
Are past and dead, a weary while ; 

Because the dawn, that joy has brought, 
Brings now but certainty of pain, 

Nothing for you and me has bought 
The right to live our lives in^vain. 

Take not away the only lure 

That leads me on my lonely way, 

To know you noble, sweet, and pure. 
Great in least service, day by day. 



I 249 ] 



TEMPTED 

Yes, I know what you say : 
Since it cannot be soul to soul, 

Be it flesh to flesh, as it may ; 
But is Earth the whole ? 

Shall a man betray the Past 
For all Earth gives ? 
'' But the Past is dead ? " At last, 
It is all that lives. 

Which were the nobler goal — 
To snatch at the moment's bliss. 

Or to swear I will keep my soul 
Clean for her kiss ? 



C 250 -} 



ALONE 

Still earth turns and pulses stir. 
And each day hath its deed ; 

But if I be dead to her. 
What is the life I lead? 

Cares the cuckoo for the wood. 
When the red leaves are down? 

Stays the robin near the brood, 
When they are fledged and flown? 

Yea, we live ; the common air 
To both its bounty brings. 

Mockery ! Can the absent share 
The half -forgotten things ? 

Barren comfort fancy doles 

To him that truly sees ; 
Sullen Earth can sever souls 

Far as the Pleiades. 



I 251 ] 

Take thy toys, stepmother Earth, — 
Take force of limb and brain ; 

All thy gifts are little worth, 
Till her I find again. 

Grass may spring and buds may stir,- 
Why should mine eyes take heed? 

For if I be dead to her. 
Then am I dead indeed. 



C 252 ] 



TO A MAID DEMURE 

Often when the night is come, 
With its quiet group at home, 
While they broider, knit, or sew, 
Read, or chat in voices low, 
Suddenly you lift your eyes 
With an earnest look, and wise ; 
But I cannot read their lore, — 
Tell me less, or tell me more. 

Like a picture in a book. 
Pure and peaceful is your look, 
Quietly you walk your ways ; 
Steadfast duty fills the days. 
Neither tears nor fierce delights, 
Feverish days nor tossing nights. 
Any troublous dreams confess, — 
Tell me more, or tell me less. 

Swift the weeks are on the wing; 
Years are brief, and love a thing 



C 253 2 

Blooming, fading, like a flower; 
Wake and seize the little hour. 
Give me welcome, or farewell ; 
Quick ! I wait ! And who can tell 
What to-morrow may befall, — 
Love me more, or not at all. 



I 254 ] 



THE COUP DE GRACE 

If I were very sure 
That all was over betwixt you and me — 

That, while this endless absence I endure 
With but one mood, one dream, one misery 
Of waiting, you were happier to be free, — 

Then I might find again 
In cloud and stream and all the winds that blow. 

Yea, even in the faces of my fellow-men, 
The old companionship ; and I might know 
Once more the pulse of action, ere I go. 

But now I cannot rest, 
While this one pleading, querulous tone without 

Breaks in and mars the music in my breast. 
I open the closed door — lo ! all about. 
What seem your lingering footprints; then I 
doubt. 



Waken me from this sleep ! 
Strike fearless, let the naked truth-edge gleam ! 

For while the beautiful old past I keep, 
I am a phantom, and all mortals seem 
But phantoms, and my life fades as a dream. 



i: 256 ] 



THE WORLD RUNS ROUND 

For the Anniversary of the Overland Magazine, San 

Francisco, 1884 

The world runs round, 
And the world runs well ; 
And at heaven's bound, 
Weaving what the hours shall tell 
Of the future way, 
Sit the great Norns, sisters gray. 
Now a thread of doom and hate. 
Now a skein of life and love, — 
Whether hearing shriek or psalm. 
Hearts that curse or pray. 
Most composed and very calm 
Is their weaving, soon and late. 

One man's noisy years go by, 
Eich to the crowd's shallow eye, 
Full of big and empty sound, 
Brandished gesture, voice profound. 
Blustering benevolence. 



C 257 ] 

Thin in deeds and poor in pence. 

Out of it all, so loud and long, 

What one thread that 's clean and strong 

To weave the coming good. 

Can the great Norns find ? 

But where some poor child stood. 

And shrank, and wept its f aultiness, 

Out of that little life so bHnd 

The great web takes a golden strand 

That shall shine and that shall stand 

The whole wide world to bless. 

One man walks in silk : 
Honey and milk 
Flow through his days. 
Corn loads his wains. 
He hath all men's praise, 
He sees his heart's desire. 
In all his veins 

What can the sorrowful Norns 
Find of heroic fire? 
Another finds his ways 
All blocked and barred. 
Lonely, he grapples hard. 



[ 258 ] 

Sets teeth and bleeds. 
Then the glad Norns 
Know he succeeds, 
With victory wrought 
Greater than he sought. 

When will the world believe 

Force is for him that is met and fought : 

Storm hath no song till the pine resists ; 

Lightning no flame when it runs as it lists ; 

So do the wise Norns weave. 

The world runs round, 

And the world runs well : 

It needs no prophet, when evil is found. 

Good to foretell. 

Many the voices 
Rufiling the air : 
This one rejoices, 
That in despair 
Past the sky-bars 
Climbs to the stars. 

One voice is heard 
By the ocean's shore, 



C ^59 J 

Speaking a word 
Quiet and sane, 

Amid the human rush and roar 
Like a robin's song in the rain. 
The red gold of the sun 
Seems to stream in power 
Already from behind the shower 
When that song 's begun. 

It doth not insist, or claim ; 

You may hear, or go : 

It clamors not for gain or fame, 

Tranquilly and slow 

It speaketh unafraid. 

Calls the spade, spade, 

With the large sense mature 

Of him that hath both sat and roved, 

And with a solemn undercurrent pure. 

As his that now hath lived and loved. 

Brightened with glimpse and gleam 

Of mother-wit — 

There is more salt in it, 

More germ and sperm 

Of the great things to be, 

Than louder notes men speak and sing. 



i: 260 ] 

It is a voice of Spring, 
Clear and firm. 
Tones prophetic in it flow. 
Steady and strong, 
Yet soft and low — 
An excellent thing in song. 
" I can wait," saith merry Spring, 
If the rain runneth, and the wind hummeth. 
And the mount at morn be hoar with snow. 
In the frost the violet dozes. 
Wind and rain bear breath of roses, 
And the great summer cometh 
Wherein all things shall gayly bloom and grow. 
Long may the voice be found. 
Potent its spell, 
While the world runs round, 
And the world runs well. 



[ 261 ] 



SUNDAY 

S^OT a dread cavern, hoar with damp and mould, 
R^here I must creep, and in the dark and cold, 

Offer some awful incense at a shrine 

That hath no more divine 
Chan that 't is far from life, and stern, and old ; 

8ut a bright hilltop in the breezy air, 

Full of the morning freshness high and clear, 

Where I may climb and drink the pure, new day, 

And see where winds away 
Che path that God would send me, shining fair. 



[ 262 ] 



ON SECOND THOUGHT 

The end 's so near, 

It is all one 
What track I steer, 

What work 's begun. 

It is all one 

If nothing 's done, 
The end 's so near ! 

The end 's so near, 
It is all one 

What track thou steer, 
What work 's begun — 
Some deed, some plan. 
As thou 'rt a man ! 

The end 's so near ! 



C 263 ] 



HIS LOST DAY 

Growing old, and looking back 
Wistfully along his track, 
I have heard him try to tell, 
With a smile a little grim, 
Why a world he loved so well 
Had no larger fruit of him : — 

'T was one summer, when the time 
Loitered like drowsy rhyme, 
Sauntering on his idle way 
Somehow he had lost a day. 
Whether 't was the daisies meek, 
Keeping Sabbath all the week. 
Birds without one work-day even, 
Or the little pagan bees, 
Busy all the sunny seven, — 
Whether sleep at afternoon. 
Or much rising with the moon, 
Couching with the morning star. 
Or enchantments like to these. 
Had confused his calendar, — 



" It is Saturday/' men said. 
"Nay, 't is Friday/' obstinate 

Clung the notion in his head. 

Had the cloudy sisters three 

In their weaving of his fate, 

Dozed, and dropped a stitch astray? 

" 'T was the losing of that day 
Cost my fortune," he would say. 
On that day I should have writ 
Screeds of wisdom and of wit ; 
Should have sung the missing song, 
Wonderful, and sweet, and strong ; 
Might have solved men's doubt and dream 
With some waiting truth supreme. 
If another thing there be 
That a groping hand may miss 
In a twiHght world like this. 
Those lost hours its grace and glee 
Surely would have brought to me." 



C 265 ] 



FERTILITY 

Clear water on smooth rock 

Could give no foothold for a single flower, 

Or slenderest shaft of grain : 

The stone must crumble under storm and rain — 

The forests crash beneath the whirlwind's power - 

And broken boughs from many a tempest-shock, 

And fallen leaves of many a wintry hour, 

Must mingle in the mould, 

Before the harvest whitens on the plain, 

Bearing an hundred-fold. 

Patience, weary heart ! 

Let all thy sparkling hours depart. 

And all thy hopes be withered with the frost, 

And every effort tempest-tost — 

So, when all life's green leaves 

Are fallen, and mouldered underneath the sod. 

Thou shalt go not too Hghtly to thy God, 

But heavy with full sheaves. 



i: ^66 2 



THE MYSTERY 

I NEVER know why 't is I love thee so : 
I do not think 't is that thine eyes for me 
Grow bright as sudden sunshine on the sea ; 
Nor for thy rose-leaf lips, or breast of snow, 
Or voice like quiet waters where they flow. 

So why I love thee well I cannot tell : 
Only it is that when thou speak' st to me 
'T is thy voice speaks, and when thy face I see 
It is thy face I see ; and it befell 
Thou wert, and I was, and I love thee well. 



[ 267 ] 



THE LOST BIRD 

What cared she for the free hearts ? She would com 

fort 

The prisoned one : 
What recked I of the wanton other singers ? 

She sang for me alone — 

Was all my own, my own ! 

But when they loaded me with heavier fetters, 

And chained I lay, 
How could she know I longed to reach her window ? 

Athirst the livelong day. 

At eve she fled away. 

Still stands her cage wide open at the casement, 

In sun and rain. 
Though years have gone, and rust has thickly gath- 
ered, — 

My watching all in vain ; 

She will not come again. 



I 268 ;] 

Against its wires I strum with idle fingers 

From morn to noon ; 
I swing the door with loitering touch, and listen 

To hear that old-time tune. 

Sweet as the soul of June. 

My bird, my silver voice that cheered nay prison, 

Hushed, lost to me : 
And still I wait for death, in chains, forsaken, 

(Soon may the summons be !) 

But she is free. 

— "Is free?" 

Nay, in the palace porches caught and hanging, 

Who says 't is gay — 
The song the false prince hears ? who says her sing- 
ing? 

From day to summer day. 

Grieves not her heart away ? 

But when my dream comes true in that last sleeping. 

And death makes free. 
Against the blue shall snowy wings come sweeping, 

JMy bird flown back to me, 

Mine for eternity ! 



[ 269 :i 



WARNING 

Be true to me ! For there will dawn a day 
When thou wilt find the faith that now I see, 
Bow at the shrines where I must bend the knee, 
Knowing the great from small. Then lest thou say, 
" Ah me, that I had never flung away 
His love who would have stood so close to me 
Where now I walk alone " — lest there should be 
Such vain regret, Love, oh be true ! But nay. 
Not true to me : true to thine own high quest 
Of truth ; the aspiration in thy breast. 
Noble and blind, that pushes by my hand. 
And will not lean, yet cannot surely stand ; 
True to thine own pure heart, as mine to thee 
Beats true. So shalt thou best be true to me. 



C 270 ] 



SUMMER AFTERNOON 

Far in hollow mountain canons 
Brood with purple-folded pinions, 
Flocks of drowsy distance-colors on their nests ; 
And the bare round slopes for forests 
Have cloud-shadows, floating forests, 
On their breasts. 

Winds are wakening and dying, 
Questions low with low replying, 
Through the oak a hushed and trembUng whis- 
per goes : 
Faint and rich the air with odors, 
Hyacinth and spicy odors 
Of the rose. 

Even the flowerless acacia 
Is one flower — such slender stature, 
With its latticed leaves a-tremble in the sun : 
They have shower-drops for blossoms. 
Quivering globes of diamond blossoms. 
Every one. 



1 271 ] 

In the blue of heaven holy 
Clouds go floating, floating slowly, 
Pure in snowy robe and sunny silver crown ; 
And they seem like gentle angels — 
Leisure-full and loitering angels, 
Looking down. 

Half the birds are wild with singing. 
And the rest with rhythmic winging 
Sing in melody of motion to the sight ; 
Every Httle sparrow twitters, 
Cheerily chirps, and cheeps, and twitters 
His dehght. 

Sad at heart amid the splendor. 
Dull to all the radiance tender. 
What can I for such a world give back again ? 
Could I only hint the beauty — 
Some least shadow of the beauty, 
Unto men ! 



[ 272 ] 



SUMMER NIGHT 

From the warm garden in the summer night 

All faintest odors came : the tuberose white 

Glimmered in its dark bed, and many a bloom 

Invisibly breathed spices on the gloom. 

It stirred a trouble in the man's duU heart, 

A vexing, mute unrest : " Now what thou art, 

Tell me ! " he said in anger. Something sighed, 

" I am the poor ghost of a ghost that died 

In years gone by." And he recalled of old 

A passion dead — long dead, even then — that came 

And haimted many a night like this, the same 

In their dim hush above the fragrant mould 

And glimmering flowers, and troubled all his breast. 

" Eest ! " then he cried ; " perturbed spirit, rest ! " 



[ 273 ] 



A CALIFORNIAN'S DREAMS 

A THUNDER-STORM of the olden days ! 

The red sun sinks in a sleepy haze ; 

The sultry twihght, close and still, 

Muffles the cricket's drowsy trill. 

Then a round-topped cloud rolls up the west, 

Black to its smouldering, ashy crest, 

And the chariot of the storm you hear, 

With its jarring axle rumbling near ; 

Till the blue is hid, and here and there 

The sudden, blinding lightnings glare. 

Scattering now the big drops fall. 

Till the rushing rain in a silver wall 

Blurs the line of the bending elms. 

Then blots them out and the landscape whelms. 

A flash — a clap, and a rumbling peal : 

The broken clouds the blue reveal ; 

The last bright drops fall far away. 

And the wind, that had slept for heat all day, 

With a long-drawn sigh awakes again 

And drinks the cool of the blessed rain. 



L 274 ] 

November ! night, and a sleety storm : 

Close are the ruddy curtains, warm 

And rich in the glow of the roaring grate. 

It may howl outside like a baffled fate, 

And rage on the roof, and lash the pane 

With its fierce and impotent wrath in vain. 

Sitting within at our royal ease 

We sing to the chime of the ivory keys, 

And feast our hearts from script and score 

With the wealth of the mellow hearts of yore. 

A winter's night on a world of snow ! 
Not a sound above, not a stir below : 
The moon hangs white in the icy air. 
And the shadows are motionless everywhere. 
Is this the planet that we know — 
This silent floor of the ghostly snow ? 
Or is this the moon, so still and dead. 
And yonder orb far overhead, 
With its silver map of plain and sea, 
Is that the earth where we used to be ? 
Shall we float away in the frosty blue 
To that living, summer world we knew, 
With its full, hot heart-beats as of old, 
Or be frozen phantoms of the cold ? 



L 275 3 

A river of ice, all blue and glare, 

Under a star-shine dim and rare. 

The sheeny sheet in the sparkling light 

Is ribbed with slender wisps of white — 

Crinkles of snow, that the flying steel 

Lightly crunches with ringing heel. 

Swinging swift as the swallows skim. 

You round the shadowy river's rim : 

Falling somewhere out of the sky 

Hollow and weird is the owlet's cry ; 

The gloaming woods seem phantom hosts. 

And the bushes cower in the snow like ghosts. 

Till the tinkling feet that with you glide 

Skate closer and closer to your side. 

And something steals from a furry mufP, 

And you clasp it and cannot wonder enough 

That a little palm so soft and fair 

Could keep so warm in the frosty air. 

'T is thus we dream in our tranquil clime. 
Rooted still in the olden time ; 
Longing for all those glooms and gleams 
Of passionate Nature's mad extremes. 
Or was it only our hearts, that swelled 
With the youth and life and love they held ? 



C 276 2 



, FULFILLMENT 

All the skies had gloomed in gray, 
Many a week, day after day. 
Nothing came the blank to fill, 
Nothing stirred the stagnant will. 
Winds were raw ; buds would not swell : 
Some maHgn and sullen spell 
Soured the currents of the year. 
And filled the heart with lurking fear. 

In his room he moped and glowered, 
Where the leaden daylight lowered ; 
Drummed the casement, turned his book. 
Hating nature's hostile look. 

Suddenly there came a day 
When he flung his gloom away. 
Something hinted help was near : 
Winds were fresh and sky was clear ; 
Light he stepped, and firmly planned, — 
Some good news was close at hand 



[ 277 ] 

Truly : for when day was done, 
He was lying all alone, 
Fretted pulse had ceased to beat, 
Very still were hands and feet, 
And the robins through the long 
Twilight sang his slumber song. 



[ 278 ] 



THE SINGER 

Silly bird ! 

When his mate is near, 

Not a note of singing shall you hear. 

Take his little love away, 

Half the livelong day 

Will his tune be heard — 

Silly bird ! 

Sunny days 

Silent basks he in the hght, 

Little sybarite ! 

But when all the room 

Darkens in the gloom, 

And the rain 

Pours and pours along the pane, 

He is bent 

(Ah, the small inconsequent !) 

On defying all the weather ; 

Eain and cloud and storm together 

Naught to him. 

Singing like the seraphim. 



C 279 ] 

So we know a poet's ways : 
Sunny days, 
Silent he 

In his fine serenity ; 
But if winds are loud, 
He will pipe beneath the cloud ; 
And if one is far away, 
Sings his heart out, as to say, — 
^^ It may be 
She will hear and come to me." 



c 280 n 



THE THINGS THAT WILL NOT 

DIE 

What am I glad will stay when I have passed 
From this dear valley of the world, and stand 

On yon snow-glimmering peaks, and lingering cast 
From that dim land 
A backward look, and haply stretch my hand, 

Kegretful, now the wish comes true at last? 

Sweet strains of music I am glad will be 

Still wandering down the wind, for men will hear 

And think themselves from all their care set free, 
And heaven near 
When summer stars burn very still and clear, 

And waves of sound are swelling like the sea. 

And it is good to know that overhead 

Blue skies will brighten, and the sun will shine. 

And flowers be sweet in many a garden bed, 
And all divine, 
(For are they not, Father, thoughts of thine ?) 

Earth's warmth and fragrance shall on men be shed. 



[ 281 ] 

And I am glad that Night will always come, 
Hushing all sounds, even the soft-voiced birds, 

Putting away all light from her deep dome, 
Until are heard 
In the wide starlight's stillness, unknown words. 

That make the heart ache till it find its home. 

And I am glad that neither golden sky. 
Nor violet lights that Hnger on the hill. 

Nor ocean's wistful blue shall satisfy, 
But they shall fill 
With wild unrest and endless longing still 

The soul whose hope beyond them all must he. 

And I rejoice that love shall never seem 

So perfect as it ever was to be. 
But endlessly that inner haunting dream 
Each heart shall see 

Hinted in every dawn's fresh purity. 
Hopelessly shadowed in each sunset's gleam. 

And though warm mouths will kiss and hands will 
cling. 
And thought by silent thought be understood. 



I do rejoice that the next hour will bring 
That far-off mood, 
That drives one like a lonely child to God, 
Who only sees and measures everything. 

And it is well that when these feet have pressed 
The outward path from earth, 't will not seem sad 

To them that stay ; but they who love me best 
Will be most glad 
That such a long unquiet now has had, 

At last, a gift of perfect peace and rest. 



C 283 ] 



THE SECRET 

A TIDE of sun and song in beauty broke 
Against a bitter heart, where no voice woke 
Till thus it spoke : — 

What was it, in the old time that I know, 
That made the world with inner beauty glow, 
Now a vain show ? 

Still dance the shadows on the grass at play. 
Still move the clouds like great, calm thoughts away, 
Nor haste, nor stay. 

But I have lost that breath within the gale. 
That Hght to which the daylight was a veil, 
The star-shine pale. 

Still all the summer with its songs is filled, 
But that delicious undertone they held — 
Why is it stilled? 



1 284 3 

Then I took heart that I would find again 
The voices that had long in silence lain, 
Nor live in vain. 

I stood at noonday in the hollow wind, 
Listened at midnight, straining heart and mind 
If I might find ! 

But all in vain I sought, at eve and morn. 
On sunny seas, in dripping woods forlorn. 
Till tired and worn, 

One day I left my solitary tent 
And down into the world's bright garden went, 
On labor bent. 

The dew stars and the buds about my feet 
Began their old bright message to repeat, 
In odors sweet ; 

And as I worked at weed and root in glee. 
Now humming and now whistling cheerily. 
It came to me, — 



[ 285 :] 

The secret of the glory that was fled 
Shone like a sweep of sun all overhead, 
And something said, — 

" The blessing came because it was not sought ; 
There was no care if thou wert blest or not : 
The beauty and the wonder all thy thought, — 
Thyself forgot." 



[ 286 ] 



LOST LOVE 

Bury it, and sift 

Dust upon its light, — 

Death must not be left, 
To offend the sight. 

Cover the old love — 

Weep not on the mound — 
Grass shall grow above, 

Lilies spring around. 

Can we fight the law, 

Can our natures change — 
Half-way through withdraw — 

Other hves exchange ? 

You and I must do 
As the world has done, 

There is nothing new 
Underneath the sun. 



C 287 3 

Fill the grave up full — 
Put the dead love by — 

Not that men are dull, 
Not that women lie, — 

But 't is well and right — 
Safest, you will find — 

That the Out of Sight 
Should be Out of Mind. 



C 288 3 



APPRECIATED 

Ah, coiild I but be understood ! " 
(I prayed the powers above,) 
" Could but some spirit, bright and good, 
Know me, and, knomng, love ! '' 

One summer's day there came to pass — 

A maid ; and it befell 
She spied and knew me : yea, alas ! 

She knew me all too well. 

Gray were the eyes of Rosamund, 

And I could see them see 
Through and through me, and beyond, 

And care no more for me. 



[ 2^.9 J 



MOODS 

Dawn has blossomed : the sun is nigh : 
Pearl and rose in the wimpled sky, 
Rose and pearl on a brightening blue: 
(She is true, and she is true !) 

The noonday lies all wann and still 
And calm, and over sleeping hill 
And wheatfields falls a dreamy hue : 
(If she be true — if she be true !) 

The patient evening comes, most sad and fair : 
Veiled are the stars : the dim and quiet air 
Breathes bitter scents of hidden myrrh and rue : 
(If she were true — if she were only true !j 



C 290 -} 



SPACE 

Black, frost-cold distance, sparsely honeycombed 

With hollow shells of glimmering golden light ; 

Mere amber bubbles floating through the night, 

Lit by one centred sparkle, azure-domed, 

With circling motes where life hath lodged and 

roamed. 



C 291 ] 



UNTIMELY THOUGHT 

I LOOKED across the lawn one summer's day, 
Deep shadowed, dreaming in the drowsy light, 
And thought, what if this afternoon, so bright 

And still, should end it ? — as it may. 

Blue dome, and flocks of fleece that slowly pass 
Before the pale old moon, the while she keeps 
Her sleepy watch, and ancient pear that sweeps 

Its low, fruit-laden skirts along the grass. 

What if I had to say to all of these, 

" So this is the last time " — suddenly there 
My love came loitering under the great trees ; 

And now the thought I could no longer bear : 
Startled I flung it from me, as one flings 
All sharply from the hand a bee that stings. 



[ 292 ] 



THE LIFE NATURAL 

Overhead the leaf -song, on the upland slope ; 
Over that the azure, clean from base to cope ; 
Belle the mare beside me, drowsy from her lope. 

Goldy-green the wheat-field, like a fluted wall 

In the pleasant wind, with waves that rise and fall, 

" Moving all together," if it " move at all." 

Shakespeare in my pocket, lest I feel alone, 
Lest the brooding landscape take a sombre tone ; 
Good to have a poet to fall back upon ! 

But the vivid beauty makes the book absurd : 
What beside the real world is the written word ? 
Keep the page till winter, when no thrush is heard ! 

Why read Hamlet here ? — what 's Hecuba to me ? 
Let me read the grain-field ; let me read the tree ; 
Let me read mine own heart, deep as I can see. 



C 293 ] 



THE ORACLE 

Down in its crystal hollow 

Gleams the ebon well of ink : 
In the deepest drop lies lurking 

The thought all men shall think. 

Fair on the waiting tablet 
Lies the empty paper's space : 

Out of its snow shall flush a word 
Like an angel's earnest face. 

Who in those depths shall cast his line 
For the gnome that hugs that thought ? 

Who from the snowy field shall charm 
That flower of truth untaught ? 

Not in the lore of the ancients, 

Not in the yesterday : 
On the lips of the living moments 

The gods their message lay. 



c: 294 ;] 

Somewhere near it is waiting, 

Like a night-wind wandering free, 

Seeking a mouth to speak through, — 
Whose shall the message be ? 

It may steal forth Hke a flute note, 

It may be suddenly hurled 
In blare upon blare of a trumpet blast. 

To startle and stir the world. 

Hark ! but just on the other side 
Some thinnest wall of dreams. 

Murmurs a whispered music. 
And softest rose-Hght gleams. 

Listen, and watch, and tell the world 
What it almost dies to know : 

Or wait — and the wise old world will say, 
" I knew it long ago." 



C 295 3 



FORCE 

The stars know a secret 

They do not tell ; 
And morn brings a message 

Hidden well. 

There 's a blush on the apple, 

A tint on the wing, 
And the bright wind whistles, 

And the pulses sting. 

Perish dark memories ! 

There 's Hght ahead ; 
This world 's for the hving ; 

Not for the dead. 

In the shining city, 

On the loud pave. 
The life-tide is running 

Like a leaping wave. 



[ 296 ] 

How the stream quickens, 
As noon draws near, 

No room for loiterers, 
No time for fear. 

Out on the farm lands 
Earth smiles as well ; 

Gold-crusted grain-fields. 
With sweet, warm smell; 

Whir of the reaper, 

Like a giant bee ; 
Like a Titan cricket, ^ 

Thrilling with glee. 

On mart and meadow, 
Pavement or plain ; 

On azure mountain. 
Or azure main — 

Heaven bends in blessing ; 

Lost is but won ; 
Goes the good rain-cloud. 

Comes the good sun ! 



Only babes whimper, 

And sick men wail, 
And faint hearts and feeble hearts 

And weaklings fail. 

Down the great currents 

Let the boat swing ; 
There was never winter 

But brought the spring. 



C 298 ] 



NIGHT AND PEACE 

Night in the woods, — night : 

Peace, peace on the plain. 
The last red sunset beam 

Belts the tall beech with gold ; 

The quiet kine are in the fold. 
And stilly flows the stream. 

Soon shall we see the stars again. 

For one more day down to its rest has lain. 
And all its cares have takem flight. 

And all its doubt and pain. 
Night in the woods, — night : 

Peace, peace on the plain. 



[ ^99 ] 



THE SINGER'S CONFESSION 

Once he cried to all the hills and waters 
And the tossing grain and tufted grasses : 

" Take my message — tell it to my brothers ! 
Stricken mute I cannot speak my message. 
When the evening wind comes back from ocean, 
Singing surf -songs, to Earth's fragrant bosom. 
And the beautiful young human creatures 
Gather at the mother feet of Nature, 
Gazing with their pure and wistful faces, 
Tell the old heroic human story. 
When they weary of the wheels of science. 
Grinding, jangling their harsh dissonances, — 
Stones and bones and alkaHs and atoms, — 
Sing to them of human hope and passion ; 

. And the soul divine, whose incarnation. 
Born of love — alas ! my message stumbles. 
Faints on faltering lips : Oh, speak it for me ! " 

Then a hush fell ; and around about him 
Suddenly he felt the mighty shadow 



[300] . 

Of the hills, like grave and silent pity ; 
And, as one who sees without regarding, 
The wide wind went over him and left him, 
And the brook, repeating low, " His message ! " 
Babbled, as it fled, a quiet laughter. 

What was he, that he had touched their message — 

Theirs, who had been chanting it forever : 

With whose organ-tones the human spirit 

Had eternally been overflowing ! 

Then, with shame that stung in cheek and forehead, 

Slow he crept away. 

And now he listens, 
Mute and still, to hear them tell their message — 
All the holy hills and sacred waters ; 
When the sea-wind swings its evening censer, 
TiU the misty incense hides the altar 
And the long-robed shadows, lowly kneeling. 



L 301 ] 



LIVING 

" To-day," I thought, '' I will not plan nor strive ; 
Idle as yon blue sky, or clouds that go 
Like loitering ships, with sails as white as snow, 
I simply will be glad to be alive." 

For, year by year, in steady summer glow 

The flowers had bloomed, and life had stored its hive, 

But tasted not the honey. Quite to thrive, 

The flavor of my thrift I now would know. 

But the good breeze blew in a friend — a boon 
At any hour. There was a book to show, 
A gift to take, a slender one to give. 
The morning passed to mellow afternoon, 
And that to twilight ; it was sleep-time soon, — 
And lo ! again I had forgot to live. 



[ 302 ] 



EVEN THERE 

A TROOP of babes in Summer Land, 
At heaven's gate — the children's gate : 

One lifts the latch with rosy hand, 

Then turns and, dimpling, asks her mate, 



5J 



» 



" What was the last thing that you saw ? 
" I lay and watched the dawn begin. 
And suddenly, through the thatch of straw, 
A great, clear morning star laughed in." 

" And you ? " "A floating thistle-down, 
Against June sky and cloud-wings white. 

^' And you ? " "A falling blow, a frown — 
It frights me yet ; oh, clasp me tight ! " 



^^ And you ? " ^^ A face through tears that smiled " 
The trembling lips could speak no more ; 
The blue eyes swam ; the lonely child 
Was homesick even at heaven's door. 



C 303 ] 



SUMMER RAIN 

I SAID : " Blue heaven," (Oh, it was beautiful !) 

" Send me a tent to shut me to myself : 

I am all lonely for my soul, that wanders 

Weary, bewildered, beckoned by thy depths ; 

Thy white, round clouds, great bubbles of creamy 

snow; 
Thy luscious sunshine, like some ripe, gold fruit ; 
Thy songs of birds, and wind warm with the flowers." 

And there swept down (Oh, it was beautiful !) 

A tent of silver rain, that fell like a veil 

Shutting me in to think all quiet thoughts. 

And feel the vibrant thrill of shadowy wings 

That fluttered, checking their swift flight, and hear, 

Though with no syllable of earthly music, 

A voice of melody unutterable. 



c 304 :i 



A RESTING-PLACE 

A SEA of shade ; with hollow heights above, 
Where floats the redwood's airy roof away, 

Whose feathery lace the drowsy breezes move, 
And softly through the azure windows play: 
No nearer stir than yon white cloud astray, 

No closer sound than sob of distant dove. 

I only live as the deep forest's swoon 

Dreams me amid its dream ; for all things fade, 

Nor pulse of mine disturbs the unconscious noon. 
Even love and hope are still — albeit they made 
My heart beat yesterday — in slumber laid. 

Like yon dim ghost that last night was the moon. 

Only the bending grass, grown gray and sear. 
Nods now and then, where at my feet it swings, 

Pleased that another Hke itself is here. 

Unseen among the mighty forest things — 
Another fruitless life, that fading clings 

To earth and autumn days in doubt and fear. 



i: 305 n 

Dream on, wood ! wind, stay in thy west, 
Nor wake the shadowy spirit of the fern. 

Asleep along the fallen pine-tree's breast ! 

That, till the sun go down, and night-stars burn. 
And the chill dawn-breath from the sea return. 

Tired earth may taste heaven's honey-dew of rest. 



[ 306 ] 



A MEMORY 

Upon the barren, lonely hill 

We sat to watch the sinking sun ; 
Below, the land grew dim and still, 

Whose evening shadow had begun. 
Her finger parted the shut book, — 

At Aylmer's Field the leaf was turned. 
Bound her meek head and sainted look 

The sunset like a halo burned. 
She knew not that I watched her face — 

Her spirit through her eyes was gone 
To some far-off and Sabbath place, 

And left me gazing there alone. 
Could she have known, that quiet hour, 

What ghosts her presence raised in me. 
What graves were opened by the power 

Of that unconscious witchery. 
She would not thus have sat and seen 

The bird that balanced far below 
On the blue air, and watched the sheen 

Along his broad wings come and go. 



1 307 ] 

For was she not another's bride ? 

And I — what right had I to feast 
Upon those eyes in revery wide, 

With hungering gaze like famished beast ? 
Was it before my fate I knelt — 

The human fate, the mighty law — 
To hunger for the heart I felt, 

And love the lovely face I saw ? 
Or was it only that the brow, 

Or some sweet trick of hand or tone, 
Brought from the Past to haunt me now 

Her ghost whose love was mine alone ? 
I know not ; but we went to rest 

That eve, from songs that haunt me still, 
And all night long, in visions blest, 

I walked with angels on the hill. 



C 308 ] 



THE OPEN WINDOW 

My tower was grimly builded, 
With many a bolt and bar, 
" And here," I thought^ " I will keep my life 
From the bitter world afar." 

Dark and chill was the stony floor, 

Where never a sunbeam lay. 
And the mould crept up on the dreary wall, 

With its ghost touch, day by day. 

One morn, in my sullen musings, 

A flutter and cry I heard ; 
And close at the rusty casement 

There clung a frightened bird. 

Then back I flung the shutter 
That was never before undone, 

And I kept till its wings were rested 
The little weary one. 



C 309 ] 

But in through the open window, 

Which I had forgot to close, 
There had burst a gush of sunshine 

And a summer scent of rose. 

For all the while I had burrowed 

There in my dingy tower, 
Lo ! the birds had sung and the leaves had danced 

From hour to sunny hour. 

And such balm and warmth and beauty 

Came drifting in since then. 
That window still stands open 

And shall never be shut again. 



C 310 2 



ON A PICTURE OF MT. SHASTA 

BY KEITH 

Two craggy slopes, sheer down on either hand, 
Fall to a cleft, dark and confused with pines. 
Out of their sombre shade — one gleam of light — 
Escaping toward us like a hurrying child, 
Half laughing, half afraid, a white brook runs. 
The fancy tracks it back through the thick gloom 
< Of crowded trees, immense, mysterious 
As monoHths of some colossal temple, 
Dusky with incense, chill with endless time : 
Through their dim arches chants the distant wind, 
Hollow and vast, and ancient oracles 
Whisper, and wait to be interpreted. 
Far up the gorge denser and darker grows 
The forest ; columns lie with writhen roots in air. 
And across open glades the sunbeams slant 
To touch the vanishing wing-tips of shy birds ; 
Till from a mist-rolled valley soar the slopes. 
Blue-hazy, dense with pines to the verge of snow. 
Up into cloud. Suddenly parts the cloud, 



C 311 -} 

And lo ! in heaven — as pure as very snow. 
Uplifted like a solitary world — 
A star, grown all at once distinct and clear — 
The white earth-spirit, Shasta ! Calm, alone. 
Silent it stands, cold in the crystal air. 
White-bosomed sister of the stainless dawn. 
With whom the cloud holds converse, and the storm 
Rests there, and stills its tempest into snow. 

Once — you remember ? — we beheld that vision, 
But busy days recalled us, and the whole 
Fades now among my memories Hke a dream. 
The distant thing is all incredible. 
And the dim past as if it had not been. 
Our world flees from us ; only the one point. 
The unsubstantial moment, is our own. 
We are but as the dead, save that swift mote 
Of conscious life. Then the great artist comes, 
Commands the chariot wheels of Time to stay. 
Summons the distant, as by some austere 
Grand gesture of a mighty sorcerer's wand. 
And our whole world again becomes our own. 
So we escape the petty tyranny 
Of the incessant hour ; pure thought evades 



Its customary bondage, and the mind 

Is lifted up, watching the moon-like globe. 

How should a man be eager or perturbed 

Within this calm ? How should he greatly care 

For reparation, or redress of wrong, — 

To scotch the liar, or spurn the fawning knave, 

Or heed the babble of the ignoble crew ? 

Seest thou yon blur far up the icy slope. 

Like a man's footprint ? Half thy Uttle town 

Might hide there, or be buried in what seems 

From yonder cHff a curl of feathery snow. 

Still the far peak would keep its frozen ^alm, 

Still at the evening on its pinnacle 

Would the one tender touch of sunset dwell, 

And o'er it nightlong wheel the silent stars. 

So the great globe rounds on, — mountains, and vales. 

Forests, waste stretches of gaunt rock and sand. 

Shore, and the swaying ocean, — league on league ; 

And blossoms open, and are sealed in frost ; 

And babes are born, and men are laid to rest. 

What is this breathing atom, that his brain 

Should build or purpose aught or aught desire. 

But stand a moment in amaze and awe, 

Eapt on the wonderf ulness of the world ? 



C 313 ] 



THE TREE OF MY LIFE 

When I was yet but a child, the gardener gave me a 

tree, 
A little slim elm, to be set wherever seemed good to 

me. 
What a wonderful thing it seemed ! with its lace-edge 

leaves uncurled, 
And its span-long stem, that should grow to the grand- 
est tree in the world. 
So I searched all the garden round, and out over field 

and hill. 
But not a spot could I find that suited my wayward 

will. 
I would have it bowered in the grove, in a close and 

quiet vale ; 
I would rear it aloft on the height, to wrestle with the 

gale. 

Then I said, " I will cover its roots with a little earth 

by the door. 
And there it shall live and wait, while I search for a 

place once more. 



[ 314 ] 

But still I could never find it, the place for my won- 
drous tree, 

And it waited and grew by the door, while years 
passed over me. 

Till suddenly, one fine day, I saw it was grown too 
tall. 

And its roots gone down too deep, to be ever moved 
at all. 

So here it is growing still, by the lowly cottage door ; 

Never so grand and tall as I dreamed it would be of 
yore. 

But it shelters a tired old man in its sunshine-dappled 
shade. 

The children's pattering feet round its knotty knees 
have played. 

Dear singing birds in a storm sometimes take refuge 
there. 

And the stars through its silent boughs shine glori- 
ously fair. 



c 315 :i 



A CHILD AND A STAR 

The star, so pure in saintly white, 
Deep in the solemn soul of night, 
With dreams of deathless beauty wed, 
And golden ways that seraphs tread : 
The child — so mere a thing of earth, 
So meek a flower of mortal birth : 
A far-off lucent world, so bright, 
Stooping to touch with tender light 
That little gown at evening prayer : 
It seems a condescension rare, — 
Heaven round a common child to glow ! 
Ah ! wiser eyes of angels know 
The star, a toy but roughly wrought ; 
The child, God's own most loving thought. 
Yon evening planet, wan with moons. 
Colossal, 'mid its dim, swift noons, — 
What is it but a bulk of stone. 
Like this gray globe we dwell upon ? 
Down hollow spaces, sightless, chill. 
Its vibrant beams in darkness thrill, 



C 316 2 

Till through some window drift the rays 
Where a pure heart looks up and prays; 
And in that silent worshiper. 
The waves of feeling stir and stir, 
And spread in wider rings above, 
To tremble at God's heart of love. 
Though it be kingliest one of all 
His worlds, 't is but a stony ball : 
What are they all, from sun to sun. 
But dust and stubble, when all 's done? 
Some heavenly grace it only caught. 
When, like a hint from home, it brought 
To a child's heart one tender thought : 
Itself in that great mystery lost. 
As some bright pebble, idly tost 
Into the darkling sea at night, 
Whose widening ripples, running light. 
Go out into the infinite. 



1 317 :! 



AT DAWN 

I LAY awake and listened, ere the light 
Began to whiten at the window pane. 
The world was all asleep : earth was a fane 
Emptied of worshipers ; its dome of night, 
Its silent aisles, were awful in their gloom. 
Suddenly from the tower the bell struck four, 
Solemn and slow, how slow and solemn ! o'er 
Those death-Hke slumberers, each within his room. 
The last reverberation pulsed so long 
It seemed no tone of earthly mould at all. 
But the bell woke a thrush ; and with a call 
He roused his mate, then poured a tide of song : 
" Morning is coming, fresh, and clear, and blue," 
Said that bright song ; and then I thought of you. 



C 318 ] 



AN ADAGE FROM THE ORIENT 

At the punch-bowl's brink, 
Let the thirsty think 
What they say in Japan : 

" First the man takes a drink, 
Then the drink takes a drink, 
Then the drink takes the man ! " 



C 319 ] 



A PARADOX 

Haste, haste, laggard! — leave thy drowsy 
dreams ; 

Cram all thy brain with knowledge — clutch and 
cram ! 

The earth is wide, the universe is vast : 

Thou hast infinity to learn. Oh, haste 1 

Haste not, haste not, my soul ! " Infinity ! " 
Thou hast eternity to learn it in. 
Thy boundless lesson through the endless years 
Hath boundless leisure. Eun not like a slave — 
Sit like a king, and see the ranks of worlds 
Wheel in their cycles onward to thy feet. 



n 320 :i 



THE PHILOSOPHER 

His wheel of logic whirled and spun all day ; 
All day he held his system, grinding it 
Finer and finer, till 't was fined away. 

But the chance sparks of sense and mother-wit, 
Flung out as that wheel-logic spun and whirled, 
Kindled the nations, and lit up the world. 



C 321 ] 



A BIRD'S SONG 

The shadow of a bird 

On the shadow of a bough ; 
Sweet and clear his song is heard, 

" Seek me now — I seek thee now." 
The bird swings out of reach in the swaying tree, 
But his shadow on the garden walk below belongs to 
me. 

The phantom of my Love 

False dreams with hope doth fill, 
Softly singing far above, 

" Love me still — I love thee still ! " 
The cruel vision hovers at my sad heart's door, 
But the soul love is soaring out of reach for ever- 
more. 



C 322 ] 



THE DEAD PRESIDENT 

Were there no crowns on earth, 
No evergreen to weave a hero's wreath, 
That he must pass beyond the gates of death, 
Our hero, our slain hero, to be crowned ? 
Could there on our unworthy earth be found 

Naught to befit his worth ? 

The noblest soul of all ! 
When was there ever, since our Washington, 
A man so pure, so wise, so patient — one 
Who walked with this high goal alone in sight. 
To speak, to do, to sanction only Right, 

Though very heaven should fall ! 

Ah, not for him we weep ; 
What honor more could be in store for him ? 
Who would have had him linger in our dim 
And troublesome world, when his great work was 

done — 
Who would not leave that worn and weary one 

Gladly to go to sleep ? 



[ 323 ] 

For us the stroke was just ; 
We were not worthy of that patient heart ; 
We might have helped him more, not stood apart, 
And coldly criticised his works and ways — 
Too late now, all too late — our little praise 

Sounds hollow o'er his dust. 

Be merciful, our God ! 
Forgive the meanness of our human hearts. 
That never, till a noble soul departs. 
See half the worth, or hear the angel's wings 
Till they go rustling heavenward as he springs 

Up from the mounded sod. 

Yet what a deathless crown 
Of Northern pine and Southern orange-flower. 
For victory, and the land's new bridal hour. 
Would we have wreathed for that beloved brow ! 
Sadly upon his sleeping forehead now 

We lay our cypress down. 

martyred one, farewell ! 
Thou hast not left thy people quite alone. 



Out of thy beautiful life there comes a tone 
Of power, of love, of trust, a prophecy, 
Whose fair fulfillment all the earth shall be. 
And all the Future tell. 



[ 325 ] 



ROLAND 

A FOOLISH creature full of fears, 

He trembled for his fate, 
And stood aghast to feel the earth 

Swing' round her dizzy freight. 

With timid foot he touched each plan, 
Sure that each plan would fail ; 

Behemoth's tread was his, it seemed, 
And every bridge too frail. 

No glory of the night or day 

Lit any crown for him. 
The tranquil past but breathed a mist 

To make the future dim. 

The world, his birthright, seemed a cell. 

An iron heritage ; 
Man, a trapped creature, left to die 

Forgotten in his cage. 



In every dark he held his breath, 

And warded off a blow ; 
While at his shoulder still he sought 

Some tagging ghost of woe. 

Spying the thorns but not the flowers, 
Through all the blossoming land 

He hugged his careful heart and shunned 
The path on either hand. 

The buds that broke their hearts to give 

New odors to the air 
He saw not ; but he caught the scent 

Of dead leaves everywhere. 

Till on a day he came to know 

He had not made the world ; 
That if he slept, as when he ran, 

Each onward planet whirled. 

He knew not where the vision fell. 
Only all things grew plain — 

As if some thatch broke through and let 
A sunbeam cross his brain. 



[ 327 ] 

In beauty flushed the morning light, 
With blessing dropped the rain, 

All creatures were to him most fair, 
Nor anything in vain. 

He breathed the space that links the stars, 

He rested on God's arm — 
A man unmoved by accident. 

Untouched by any harm. 

The weary doubt if all is good, 

The doubt if aU is ill. 
He left to Him who leaves to us 

To know that all is well. 



THIS EDITION CONSISTS OF 500 COPIES 
PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON & COMPANY 
AT THE RIVERSIDE PRESS CAMBRIDGE 
FOR HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & COMPANY OF 
BOSTON NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 1902 

JVo. 



